A  HISTORY 

OF 

AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY 


LEONARD  WOOLSEY  BACON 


1^ 


€?e  C^rtBttan  Eiteratute  Co. 


MDCCCXCVil 


Copyright,   1897,  by 
The  Christia.n  Literature  Co. 


CONTENTS. 


PACB 

CHAP.  I.— Providential  Preparations  for  the  Discovery  of 
America 1-5 

Purpose  of  the  long  concealment  of  America,  i.  A  medieval 
church  in  America,  2.  Revival  of  the  Catholic  Church,  3,  especially 
in  Spain,  4,  5. 

CHAP.  II.— Spanish  Christianity  in  America 6-15 

Vastness  and  swiftness  of  the  Spanish  conquests,  6.  Conversion 
by  the  sword,  7.  Rapid  success  and  sudden  downfall  of  missions 
in  Florida,  9.  The  like  story  in  New  Mexico,  12,  and  in  Califor- 
nia, 14. 

CHAP.  III.— French  Christianity  in  America 16-29 

Magnificence  of  the  French  scheme  of  western  empire,  16.  Su- 
perior dignity  of  the  French  missions,  19.  Swift  expansion  of 
them,  20.  Collision  with  the  English  colonies,  and  triumph  of 
France,  21.  Sudden  and  complete  failure  of  the  French  church,  23. 
Causes  of  failure:  (i)  Dependence  on  royal  patronage,  24.  (2) 
Implication  in  Indian  feuds,  25.  (3)  Instability  of  Jesuit  efforts, 
26.  (4)  Scantiness  of  French  population,  27.  Political  aspect  of 
French  missions,  28.  Recent  French  Catholic  immigration,  29. 
CHAP.  IV.— Antecedents  of  Permanent  Christian  Coloniza- 
tion    30-37 

Controversies  and  parties  in  Europe,  31,  and  especially  in  Eng- 
land, 32.     Disintegration  of  Christendom,  34.     New  experiment 
of  church  life,  35.     Persecutions  promote  emigration,  36,  37. 
CHAP.  V. — Puritan  Beginnings  of  the  Church  in  Virginia..  38-53 
The  Rev.  Robert  Hunt,  chaplain  to  the  Virginia  colony,  38. 

V 


267893 


vi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Base  quality  of  the  emigration,  39.  Assiduity  in  religious  duties, 
41.  Rev.  Richard  Buck,  chaplain,  42.  Strict  Puritan  regime  of 
Sir  T.  Dale  and  Rev.  A.  Whitaker,  43.  Brightening  prospects  ex- 
tinguished  by  massacre,  48.  Dissolution  of  the  Puritan  "  Virginia 
Company"  by  the  king,  48.  Puritan  ministers  silenced  by  the 
royal  governor,  Berkeley,  49.  The  governor's  chaplain,  Harrison, 
is  converted  to  Puritan  principles,  49.  Visit  of  the  Rev,  Patrick 
Copland,  50.  Degradation  of  church  and  clergy,  51.  Commis- 
sary Blair  attempts  reform,  52.     Huguenots  and  Scotch-Irish,  53. 

CHAP.  VI. —  Maryland  and  the   C.a.rolixas •. . .   54-67 

George  Calvert,  Lord  Baltimore,  54 ;  secures  giant  of  Maryland, 
55.  The  second  Lord  Baltimore  organizes  a  colony  on  the  basis  of 
religious  liberty,  56.  Success  of  the  two  Jesuit  priests,  57.  Bal- 
timore restrains  the  Jesuits,  58,  and  encourages  the  Puritans,  59. 
Attempt  at  an  Anglican  establishment,  61.  Commissary  Bray,  61. 
Tardy  settlement  of  the  Carolinas,  62.  A  mi.\ed  population,  63. 
Success  of  Quakerism,  65.  American  origin  of  English  missionary 
societies,  66. 

CHAP.  VII. —  Dutch  Calvinists  and  Swedish  Lutherans  .  .  68-81 
Faint  traces  of  religious  life  in  the  Dutch  settlements,  69.  Pas- 
tors Michaelius,  Bogardus,  and  Megapolensis,  70.  Religious 
liberty,  diversity,  and  bigotry,  72.  The  Quakers  persecuted,  73. 
Low  vitality  of  the  Dutch  colony,  75.  Swedish  colony  on  the  Del- 
aware, 76 ;  subjugated  by  the  Dutch,  77.  The  Dutch  evicted  by 
England,  78.  The  Dutch  church  languishes,  79.  Attempts  to 
establish  Anglicanism,  79.     The  S.  P.  G.,  80. 

CHAP.  VIIL—  The  Church  in  New  England 82-108 

Puritan  and  Separatist,  82.  The  Separatists  of  Scrooby,  83. 
Mutual  animosity  of  the  two  parties,  84.  Spirit  of  John  Robinson, 
85.  The  "social  compact"  of  the  Pilgrims,  in  state,  87;  and  in 
church,  88.  Feebleness  of  the  Plymouth  colony,  89.  The  Puri- 
tan colony  at  Salem,  90.  Purpose  of  the  colonists,  91.  Their  right 
to  pick  their  own  company,  92.  Fellowship  with  the  Pilgrims,  93. 
Constituting  the  Salem  church,  and  ordination  of  its  ministers,  95. 
Expulsion  of  schismatics,  97.  Coming  of  the  great  Massachusetts 
colony  bringing  the  charter,  98.  The  New  England  church 
polity,  99.  Nationalism  of  the  Puritans,  lOO.  Dealings  with 
Roger  Williams,  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  and  the  Quakers,  loi.  Diver- 
sities among  the  colonies,  102.  Divergences  of  opinion  and  prac- 
tice  in  the  churches,  103.  Variety  of  sects  in  Rhode  Island,  106, 
with  mutual  good  will,  107.     Lapse  of  the  Puritan  church-state,  108. 


CONTENTS.  Vli 

PAGE 

CHAP.  IX.— The  Middle  Colonies  and   Georgia 109-126 

Dutch,  Puritan,  Scotch,  and  Quaker  settlers  in  New  Jersey,  109. 
Quaker  corporation  and  government,  no.  Quaker  reaction  from 
Puritanism,  113.  Extravagance  and  discipline,  114.  Quakerism 
in  continental  Europe,  115.  Penn's  "  Holy  Experiment,"  116. 
Philadelphia  founded,  117.  German  sects,  118.  Keith's  sclusm, 
and  the  mission  of  the  "  S.  P.  G.,"  119.  Lutheran  and  Reformed 
Germans,  120.  Scotch-Irish,  121.  Georgia,  122.  Oglethorpe's 
charitable  scheme,  123.  The  Salzburgers,  the  Moravians,  and  the 
Wesleys,  124.     George  Whitefield,  126. 

CHAP.  X.— The  Eve  of  the  Great  Awakening 127-154 

Fall  of  the  New  England  theocracy,  128.  Dissent  from  the 
"Standing  Order":  Baptist,  130;  Episcopalian,  131.  In  New 
York:  the  Dutch  church,  134;  the  English,  135;  the  Presbyte- 
rian, 136.  New  Englanders  moving  west,  137.  Quakers,  Hugue- 
nots, and  Palatines,  139.  New  Jersey:  Frelinghuysen  and  the 
Tennents,  141.  Pennsylvania:  successes  and  failures  of  Quaker- 
ism, 143.  The  southern  colonies:  their  established  churches,  148; 
the  mission  of  the  Quakers,  149.  The  gospel  among  the  Indians, 
150.     The  church  and  slavery,  151. 

CHAP.  XI.— The  Great  Awakening 155-180 

Jonathan  Edwards  at  Northampton,  156.  An  Awakening,  157. 
Edwards's  "Narrative"  in  America  and  England,  159.  Revivals 
in  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania,  160.  Apostolate  of  Whitefield, 
163.  Schism  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  166.  Whitefield  in 
New  England,  168.  Faults  and  excesses  of  the  evangelists,  169. 
Good  fruits  of  the  revival,  173.  Diffusion  of  Baptist  principles, 
173.  National  religious  unity,  175.  Attitude  of  the  Episcopal 
Church,  177.     Zeal  for  missions,  179. 

CHAP.  XII.— Close  of  the  Colonial  Era 181-207 

Growth  of  the  New  England  theology,  181.  Watts's  Psalms, 
182.  Warlike  agitations,  184.  The  Scotch-Irish  immigration, 
186.  The  German  immigration,  187.  Spiritual  destitution,  188. 
Zinzendorf,  189.  Attempt  at  union  among  the  Germans,  190. 
Alarm  of  the  sects,  191.  Miihlenberg  and  the  Lutherans,  191. 
Zinzendorf  and  the  Moravians,  192.  Schlatter  and  the  Reformed, 
195.  Schism  made  permanent,  197.  Wesleyan  Methodism,  198. 
Francis  Asbury,  200.  Methodism  gravitates  southward  and  grows 
apace,  201.  Opposition  of  the  church  to  slavery,  203 ;  and  to  in- 
temperance, 205.  Project  to  introduce  bishops  from  England,  re- 
sisted in  the  interest  of  libertv,  206. 


viii  CONTENTS. 

PACK 

CHAP.  XIII. — Recoxstruction 208-229 

Distraction  and  depression  after  the  War  of  Independence,  208. 
Forlorn  condition  of  the  Episcopalians,  210.  Their  republican 
constitution,  211.  Episcopal  consecration  secured  in  Scotland  and 
in  England,  212.  Feebleness  of  American  Catholicism,  214. 
Bishop  Carroll,  215.  "  Trusteeism,"  216.  Methodism  becomes  a 
church,  217.  Westward  movement  of  Christianity,  219.  Sever- 
ance of  church  from  state,  221.  Doctrinal  divisions;  Calvinist 
and  Arminian,  222.  Unitarianism,  224.  Universalism,  225.  Some 
minor  sects',~228. 

CHAP.  XIV.— The   Second  Awake.mxg 230-245 

Ebb-tide  of  spiritual  life,  230.  Depravity  and  revival  at  the 
West,  232.  The  first  camp-meetings,  233.  Good  fruits,  237. 
Nervous  epidemics,  239.  The  Cumberland  Presbyterians,  241. 
The  antisectarian  sect  of  The  Disciples,  242.  Revival  at  the  East, 
242.      President  Dwight,  243. 

CHAP.  XV.— Organized  Beneficence 246-260 

Missionary  spirit  of  the  revival,  246.  Religious  earnestness  in 
the  colleges,  247.     Mills  and  Ins  friends  at  Williamstown,  248  ;  and  | 

at  Andover,  249.  The  Unitarian  schism  in  Massachusetts,  249. 
New  era  of  theological  seminaries,  251.  Founding  of  the  A.  B. 
C.  F.  M.,  252;  of  the  Baptist  Missionary  Convention,  253.  Other 
missionary  boaids,  255.  The  Aiiierican  Bible  Society,  256.  Mills, 
and  his  work  for  the  West  and  for  Africa,  256.     Other  societies,  I 

258.     Glowing  hopes  of  the  church,  259. 

CHAP.  XVI. —  Conflicts  with   Public  Wrongs 261-291 1 

Working  of  the  voluntary  system  of  church  support,  261.  Duel- 
ing, 263.  Crime  of  the  State  of  Georgia  against  the  Cherokee  na- 
tion, implicating  the  federal  government,  264.  Jeremiah  Evarts  j 
and  Theodore  Frelinghuysen,  267.  Unanimity  of  the  church.  North 
and  South,  against  slavery,  268.  The  Missouri  Compromise,  270. 
Antislavery  activity  of  the  church,  at  the  East,  271 ;  at  the  West, 
273  ;  at  the  South,  274.  Difficulty  of  antislavery  church  discipline, 
275.  The  southern  apostasy,  277.  Causes  of  the  sudden  revolution 
of  sentiment,  279.  Defections  at  the  North,  and  rise  of  a  pro- 
slavery  party,  282.  Tlie  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill ;  solemn  and  unani- 
mous protest  of  the  clergy  of  New  England  and  New  York,  284. 
Primeval  temperance  legislation,  285.  Prevalence  of  drunkenness, 
286.  Temperance  reformation  a  religious  movement,  286.  Devel- 
opment of  "the  saloon,"  288.  The  Washingtonian  movement  and 
its  drawbacks,  289.     The  Prohibition  period,  290. 


il 


CONTENTS.  IX 

PAGE 

CHAP.  XVII.— A  Decade  of  Controversies  and  Schisms..  292-314 
Dissensions  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  292.  Growing  strength 
of  the  New  England  element,  293.  Impeachments  of  heresy,  294. 
Benevolent  societies,  295.  Sudden  excommunication  of  nearly  one 
half  of  the  church  by  the  other  half,  296.  Heresy  and  schism 
among  Unitarians  :  Emerson,  298  ;  and  Parker,  300.  Disruption, 
on  the  slavery  question,  of  the  Methodists,  301 ;  and  of  the  Bap- 
tists, 303.  Resuscitation  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  304.  Bishop 
Hobart  and  a  High-church  party,  306.  Rapid  growth  of  this 
church,  308.  Controversies  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  310. 
Contention  against  Protestant  fanaticism,  312. 

CHAP.  XVIII. —The   Great   Immigratio.n' 315-339 

Expansion  of  territory  and  increase  of  population  in  the  early 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  315.  Great  volume  of  immigration 
from  1840  on,  316.  How  drawn  and  how  driven,  316.  At  first 
principally  Irish,  then  German,  then  Scandinavian,  318.  The 
Catholic  clergy  overtasked,  320,  Losses  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
321.  Liberalized  tone  of  American  Catholicism,  323.  Plant-  i^-^ 
ing  the  church  in  the  West,  327.  Sectarian  competitions,  328. 
Protestant  sects  and  Catholic  orders,  329.  Mormonism,  335. 
Millerism,  336.     Spiritualism,  337. 

CHAP.  XIX.— The  Civil  War 340-350 

Material  prosperity,  340.  The  Kansas  Crusade,  341.  The  re- 
vival of  1857,  342.  Deepening  of  the  slavery  conflict,  345.  Threats 
of  war,  347.  Religious  sincerity  of  both  sides,  348.  The  church 
in  war-time,  349. 

CHAP. ^X.,— After  the  Civil  War 351-373 

Reconstructions,  351.  The  Catholic  Church,  352.  The  Epis- 
copal Church,  352.  Persistent  divisions  among  Methodists,  Bap- 
tists, and  Presbyterians,  353.  Healing  of  Presbyterian  schisms,  355. 
Missions  at  the  South,  355.  Vast  expansion  of  church  activities, 
357.  Great  religious  and  educational  endowments,  359.  The  en- 
listing of  personal  service :  The  Sunday-school,  362.  Chautauqua, 
363.  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  364.  Y.  W.  C.  A.,  366.  W.  C.  T.  U.,  367. 
Women's  missionary  boards,  367.  Nursing  orders  and  schools, 
368.  Y.  P.  S.  C.  E.,  and  like  associations,  368.  "  The  Institu- 
tional Church,"  369.  The  Salvation  Army,  370.  Loss  of  "  the 
American  Sabbath,"  371. 

CHAP.  XXL — The  Church  in  Theology  and  Literature      374-397 
Unfolding  of  the  Edwardean  theology,  374.   Horace  Bushnell,  375. 
The  Mercersburg  theology,  377.     "  Bodies  of  divinity,"  378.     Bib- 


X  CONTENTS. 

Heal  science,  378.  Princeton's  new  dogma,  380.  Church  history, 
381.  The  American  pulpit,  382.  "Applied  Christianity,"  385. 
Liturgies,  386.  Hymns,  387.  Other  liturgical  studies,  388. 
Church  music,  391.  The  Moravian  liturgies,  394.  Meager  pro- 
ductiveness of  the  Catholic  Church,  394.  The  Americanizing  of 
the  Roman  Church,  396. 
CHAP.    XXII.— Tendencies     toward     a     Manifestation     of 

Unity 398-420 

Growth  of  the  nation  and  national  union,  398.  Parallel  growth 
of  the  church,  399 ;  and  ecclesiastical  division,  400.  No  predomi- 
nant sect,  401.  Schism  acceptable  to  politicians,  402  ;  and  to  some 
Christians,  403.  Compensations  of  schism,  404.  Nisiis  toward 
manifest  union,  405.  Early  efforts  at  fellowship  among  sects,  406. 
High-church  protests  against  union,  407.  The  Evangelical  Alli- 
ance, 408.  Fellowship  in  non-sectarian  associations,  409.  Co- 
operation of  leading  sects  in  Maine,  410.  Various  unpromising 
projects  of  union :  I.  Union  on  sectarian  basis,  411,  IL  Ecumeni- 
cal sects,  412.  III.  Consolidation  of  sects,  413.  The  hope  of 
manifested  unity,  416.     Conclusion,  419. 


A   HISTORY 
OF  AMERICAN    CHRISTIANITY. 


CHAPTER   I. 

PROVIDENTIAL     PREPARATIONS     FOR     THE     DISCOVERY 

OF   AMERICA — SPIRITUAL   REVIVAL   THROUGHOUT 

CHRISTENDOM,    AND    ESPECIALLY    IN   THE 

CHURCH    OF    SPAIN. 

The  heroic  discovery  of  America,  at  the  close  of  the 
fifteenth  century  after  Christ,  has  compelled  the  generous 
and  just  admiration  of  the  world;  but  the  grandeur  of 
human  enterprise  and  achievement  In  the  discovery  of  the 
western  hemisphere  has  a  less  claim  on  our  admiration  than 
that  divine  wisdom  and  controlling  providence  which,  for 
reasons  now  manifested,  kept  the  secret  hidden  through 
so  many  millenniums,  in  spite  of  continual  chances  of  dis- 
closure, until  the  fullness  of  time. 

How  near,  to  "  speak  as  a  fool,"  the  plans  of  God  came 
to  being  defeated  by  human  enterprise  is  illustrated  by  un- 
questioned facts.  The  fact  of  medieval  exploration,  col- 
onization, and  even  evangehzation  in  North  America  seems 
now  to  have  emerged  from  the  region  of  fanciful  conjecture 


2  ■    AME'RiCAk  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  i. 

into  that  of  history.  That  for  four  centuries,  ending  with 
the  fifteenth,  the  church  of  Iceland  maintained  its  bishops 
and  other  missionaries  and  built  its  churches  and  monas- 
teries on  the  frozen  coast  of  Greenland  is  abundantly 
proved  by  documents  and  monuments.  Dim  but  seemingly 
unmistakable  traces  are  now  discovered  of  enterprises,  not 
only  of  exploration  and  trade,  but  also  of  evangelization, 
reaching  along  the  mainland  southward  to  the  shores  of 
New  England.  There  are  vague  indications  that  these 
beginnings  of  Christian  civilization  were  extinguished,  as 
in  so  many  later  instances,  by  savage  massacre.  With 
impressive  coincidence,  the  latest  vestige  of  this  primeval 
American  Christianity  fades  out  in  the  very  year  of  the 
discovery  of  America  by  Columbus.^ 

By  a  prodigy  of  divine  providence,  the  secret  of  the  ages 
had  been  kept  from  premature  disclosure  during  the  cen- 
turies in  which,  without  knowing  it,  the  Old  World  was 
actually  in  communication  with  the  New.  That  was  high 
strategy  in  the  warfare  for  the  advancement  of  the  king- 
dom of  God  in  the  earth.  What  possibilities,  even  yet 
only  beginning  to  be  accomplished,  were  thus  saved  to 
both  hemispheres!  If  the  discovery  of  America  had  been 
achieved  four  centuries  or  even  a  single  century  earlier, 
the  Christianity  to  be  transplanted  to  the  western  world 
would  have  been  that  of  the  church  of  Europe  at  its  lowest 
stage  of  decadence.  The  period  closing  with  the  fifteenth 
century  was  that  of  the  dense  darkness  that  goes  before 
the  dawn.  It  was  a  period  in  which  the  lingering  life  of 
the  church  was  chiefly  manifested  in  feverish  complaints 
of  the  widespread  corruption  and  outcries  for  "  reformation 
of  the  church  in  head  and  members."    The  degeneracy  of 

1  See  the  account  of  the  Greenland  church  and  its  missions  in  Professor 
O'Gorman's  "  History  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States  " 
(vol.  ix.  of  the  American  Church  History  Series),  pp.  3-12. 


CORRUPTION  IN  THE  MEDIEVAL    CHURCH.  3 

the  clergy  was  nowhere  more  manifest  than  in  the  monastic 
orders,  that  had  been  originally  established  for  the  express 
purpose  of  reviving  and  purifying  the  church.  That  ancient 
word  was  fulfilled,  "  Like  people,  like  priest."  But  it  was 
especially  in  the  person  of  the  foremost  official  represent- 
ative of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  that  that  religion  was 
most  dishonored.  The  fifteenth  century  was  the  era  of  the 
infamous  popes.  By  another  coincidence  which  arrests  the 
attention  of  the  reader  of  history,  that  same  year  of  the 
discovery  by  Columbus  witnessed  the  accession  of  the  most 
infamous  of  the  series,  the  Borgia,  Alexander  VI.,  to  his 
short  and  shameful  pontificate. 

Let  it  not  be  thought,  as  some  of  us  might  be  prone  to 
think,  that  the  timeHness  of  the  discovery  of  the  western 
hemisphere,  in  its  relation  to  church  history,  is  summed 
up  in  this,  that  it  coincided  with  the  Protestant  Reforma- 
tion, so  that  the  New  World  might  be  planted  with  a 
Protestant  Christianity.  For  a  hundred  years  the  coloni- 
zation and  evangelization  of  America  were,  in  the  narrow- 
est sense  of  that  large  word.  Catholic,  not  Protestant.  But 
the  Catholicism  brought  hither  was  that  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  not  of  the  fifteenth.  It  is  a  most  one-sided  reading 
of  the  history  of  that  illustrious  age  which  fails  to  recognize 
that  the  great  Reformation  was  a  reformation  (^/the  church 
as  well  as  a  reformation /;'<?;//  the  church.  It  was  in  Spain 
itself,  in  which  the  corruption  of  the  church  had  been 
foulest,  but  from  which  all  symptoms  of  "  heretical  pravity  " 
were  purged  away  with  the  fiercest  zeal  as  fast  as  they  ap- 
peared,— in  Spain  under  the  reign  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 
the  Catholic, — that  the  demand  for  a  Catholic  reformation 
made  itself  earliest  and  most  effectually  felt.  The  highest 
ecclesiastical  dignitary  of  the  realm,  Ximenes,  confessor  to 
the  queen.  Archbishop  of  Toledo,  and  cardinal,  was  him- 
self the  leader  of  reform.     No  changes  in  the  rest  of  Chris- 


4  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.!. 

tendom  were  destined  for  many  years  to  have  so  great  an 
influence  on  the  course  of  evangeHzation  in  North  America 
as  those  which  affected  the  church  of  Spain ;  and  of  these 
by  far  the  most  important  in  their  bearing  on  the  early 
course  of  Christianity  in  America  were,  first,  the  purifying 
and  quickening  of  the  miserably  decayed  and  corrupted 
mendicant  orders, — ever  the  most  effective  arm  in  the 
missionary  service  of  the  Latin  Church, — and,  a  httle  later, 
the  founding  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  with  its  immense 
potency  for  good  and  for  evil.  At  the  same  time  the  court 
of  Rome,  sobered  in  some  measure,  by  the  perilous  crisis 
that  confronted  it,  from  its  long  orgy  of  simony,  nepotism, 
and  sensuality,  began  to  find  time  and  thought  for  spiritual 
duties.  The  establishment  of  the  "  congregations  "  or  ad- 
ministrative boards,  and  especially  of  the  Congregatio  de 
Propaganda  Fide,  or  board  of  missions,  dates  chiefly  from 
the  sixteenth  century.  The  revived  interest  in  theological 
study  incident  to  the  general  spiritual  quickening  gave  the 
church,  as  the  result  of  the  labors  of  the  Council  of  Trent, 
a  well-defined  body  of  doctrine,  which  nevertheless  was 
not  so  narrowly  defined  as  to  preclude  differences  and 
debates  among  the  diverse  sects  of  the  clergy,  by  whose 
competitions  and  antagonisms  the  progress  of  missions 
both  in  Christian  and  in  heathen  lands  was  destined  to  be 
so  seriously  affected. 

An  incident  of  the  Catholic  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth 
century — inevitable  incident,  doubtless,  in  that  age,  but 
none  the  less  deplorable — was  the  engendering  or  intensi- 
fying of  that  cruel  and  ferocious  form  of  fanaticism  which 
is  defined  as  the  combination  of  reUgious  emotion  with  the 
malignant  passions.  The  tendency  to  fanaticism  is  one  of 
the  perils  attendant  on  the  deep  stirring  of  religious  feeling 
at  any  time ;  it  was  especially  attendant  on  the  reHgious 
agitations  of  that  period ;  but  most  of  all  it  was  in  Spain, 


\ 


REVIVAL   IN   THE    CHURCH  OF  SPAIN.  5 

where,  of  all  the  Catholic  nations,  corruption  had  gone 
deepest  and  spiritual  revival  was  most  earnest  and  sincere, 
that  the  manifestations  of  fanaticism  were  most  shocking. 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  the  Catholic  were  distinguished 
alike  by  their  piety  and  their  part  in  the  promotion  of 
civilization,  and  by  the  horrors  of  bloody  cruelty  perpe- 
trated by  their  authority  and  that  of  the  church,  at  the 
instigation  of  the  sincere  and  devout  reformer  Ximenes. 
In  the  memorable  year  1492  was  inaugurated  the  fiercest 
work  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  concerning  which,  speak- 
ing of  her  own  part  in  it,  the  pious  Isabella  was  able  after- 
ward to  say,  "  For  the  love  of  Christ  and  of  his  virgin 
mother  I  have  caused  great  misery,  and  have  depopulated 
towns  and  districts,  provinces  and  kingdoms." 

The  earlier  pages  of  American  church  history  will  not 
be  intelligently  read  unless  it  is  well  understood  that  the 
Christianity  first  to  be  transplanted  to  the  soil  of  the  New 
World  was  the  Christianity  of  Spain — the  Spain  of  Isabella 
and  Ximenes,  of  Loyola  and  Francis  Xavier  and  St.  The- 
resa, the  Spain  also  of  Torquemada  and  St.  Peter  Arbues 
and  the  zealous  and  orthodox  Duke  of  Alva. 


CHAPTER   II. 

SPANISH    CONQUEST — THE   PROPAGATION,    DECAY,    AND 
DOWNFALL   OF   SPANISH    CHRISTIANITY. 

It  is  a  striking  fact  that  the  earliest  monuments  of  co- 
lonial and  ecclesiastical  antiquity  within  the  present  domain 
of  the  United  States,  after  the  early  Spanish  remains  in 
Florida,  are  to  be  found  in  those  remotely  interior  and 
inaccessible  highlands  of  New  Mexico,  which  have  only 
now  begun  to  be  reached  in  the  westward  progress  of 
migration.  Before  the  beginnings  of  permanent  English 
colonization  at  Plymouth  and  at  Jamestown,  before  the 
French  beginnings  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  before  the  close 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  there  had  been  laid  by  Spanish 
soldiers,  adventurers,  and  missionaries,  in  those  far  recesses 
of  the  continent,  the  foundations  of  Christian  towns  and 
churches,  the  stately  walls  and  towers  of  which  still  invite 
the  admiration  of  the  traveler. 

The  fact  is  not  more  impressive  than  it  is  instructive. 
It  illustrates  the  prodigious  impetuosity  of  that  tide  of 
conquest  which  within  so  few  years  from  the  discovery  of 
the  American  continents  not  only  swept  over  the  regions 
of  South  and  Central  America  and  the  great  plateau  of 
Mexico,  but  actually  occupied  with  military  posts,  with 
extensive  and  successful  missions,  and  with  a  colonization 
which  seemed  to  show  every  sign  of  stability  and  future 
expansion,  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  present  domain 
6 


SPANISH  CONQUESTS  IN  AMERICA.  7 

of  the  United  States  exclusive  of  Alaska — an  ecclesiastico- 
military  empire  stretching  its  vast  diameter  from  the 
southernmost  cape  of  Florida  across  twenty-five  parallels 
of  latitude  and  forty- five  meridians  of  longitude  to  the 
Strait  of  Juan  de  Fuca.  The  lessons  taught  by  this  amaz- 
ingly swift  extension  of  the  empire  and  the  church,  and  its 
arrest  and  almost  extinction,  are  legible  on  the  surface  of 
the  history.  It  is  a  strange,  but  not  unparalleled,  story  of 
attempted  cooperation  in  the  common  service  of  God  and 
Mammon  and  Moloch — of  endeavors  after  concord  between 
Christ  and  Belial. 

There  is  no  reason  to  question  the  sincerity  with  which 
the  rulers  of  Spain  believed  themselves  to  be  actuated  by 
the  highest  motives  of  Christian  charity  in  their  terrible 
and  fatal  American  policy.  "  The  conversion  of  the  Indians 
is  the  principal  foundation  of  the  conquest — that  which 
ought  principally  to  be  attended  to."  So  wrote  the  king 
in  a  correspondence  in  which  a  most  cold-blooded  authori- 
zation is  given  for  the  enslaving  of  the  Indians.-^  After  the 
very  first  voyage  of  Columbus  every  expedition  of  discovery 
or  invasion  was  equipped  with  its  contingent  of  clergy — sec- 
ular priests  as  chaplains  to  the  Spaniards,  and  friars  of  the 
regular  orders  for  mission  work  among  the  Indians — at  cost 
of  the  royal  treasury  or  as  a  charge  upon  the  new  conquests. 

This  subsidizing  of  the  church  was  the  least  serious  of 
the  injuries  inflicted  on  the  cause  of  the  gospel  by  the  piety 
of  the  Spanish  government.  That  such  subsidizing  is  in 
the  long  run  an  injury  is  a  lesson  illustrated  not  only  in 
this  case,  but  in  many  parallel  cases  in  the  course  of  this 
history.  A  far  more  dreadful  wrong  was  the  identifying 
of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  with  a  system  of  war  and 
slavery,  well-nigh  the  most  atrocious  in  recorded  history. 
For  such  a  policy  the  Spanish  nation  had  just  received  a 

1  Helps,  "Spanish  Conquest  in  America,"  vol.  i.,  p.  234,  American  edition. 


8  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY,  [Chap.  ii. 

peculiar  training.  It  is  one  of  the  commonplaces  of  history 
to  remark  that  the  barbarian  invaders  of  the  Roman  empire 
were  themselves  vanquished  by  their  own  victims,  being 
converted  by  them  to  the  Christian  faith.  In  like  manner 
the  Spanish  nation,  triumphing  over  its  Moslem  subjects 
in  the  expulsion  of  the  Moors,  seemed  in  its  American 
conquests  to  have  been  converted  to  the  worst  of  the  tenets 
of  Islam.  The  propagation  of  the  gospel  in  the  western 
hemisphere,  under  the  Spanish  rule,  illustrated  in  its  public 
and  official  aspects  far  more  the  principles  of  Mohammed 
than  those  of  Jesus.  The  triple  alternative  offered  by  the 
Saracen  or  the  Turk — conversion  or  tribute  or  the  sword 
— was  renewed  with  aggravations  by  the  Christian  con- 
querors of  America.  In  a  form  deliberately  drawn  up  and 
prescribed  by  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  counselors  at 
Madrid,  the  invader  of  a  new  province  was  to  summon 
the  rulers  and  people  to  acknowledge  the  church  and  the 
pope  and  the  king  of  Spain ;  and  in  case  of  refusal  or  delay 
to  comply  with  this  summons,  the  invader  was  to  notify 
them  of  the  consequences  in  these  terms :  "  If  you  refuse, 
by  the  help  of  God  we  shall  enter  with  force  into  your 
land,  and  shall  make  war  against  you  in  all  ways  and  man- 
ners that  we  can,  and  subject  you  to  the  yoke  and  obedi- 
ence of  the  church  and  of  their  Highnesses ;  we  shall  take 
you  and  your  wives  and  your  children  and  make  slaves 
of  them,  and  sell  and  dispose  of  them  as  their  Highnesses 
may  command ;  and  we  shall  take  away  your  goods,  and 
do  you  all  the  mischief  and  damage  that  we  can,  as  to 
vassals  who  do  not  obey  and  refuse  to  receive  their  lord ; 
and  we  protest  that  the  deaths  and  losses  that  shall  accrue 
from  this  are  your  own  fault."  ^ 

1  Helps,  "Spanish  Conquest  in  America,"  vol.  i.,  p.  235;  also  p.  355, 
where  the  grotesquely  horrible  document  is  given  in  full. 

In  the  practical  prosecution  of  this  scheme  0/  evangelization,  it  was  found 
necessary  to  the  due  training  of  the  Indians  in  the  holy  faith  that  they  should 


MISSIOAS  IiV  FLORIDA.  g 

While  the  church  was  thus  implicated  in  crimes  against 
humanity  which  history  shudders  to  record,  it  is  a  grateful 
duty  to  remember  that  it  was  from  the  church  also  and  in 
the  name  of  Christ  that  bold  protests  and  strenuous  efforts 
were  put  forth  in  behalf  of  the  oppressed  and  wronged. 
Such  names  as  Las  Casas  and  Montesinos  shine  with  a 
beautiful  luster  in  the  darkness  of  that  age ;  and  the  Do- 
minican order,  identified  on  the  other  side  of  the  sea  with 
the  fiercest  cruelties  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  is  honorable 
in  American  church  history  for  its  fearless  championship 
of  liberty  and  justice. 

The  first  entrance  of  Spanish  Christianity  upon  the  soil 
of  the  United  States  was  wholly  characteristic.  In  quest 
of  the  Fountain  of  Youth,  Ponce  de  Leon  sailed  for  the 
coast  of  Florida  equipped  with  forces  both  for  the  carnal 
and  for  the  spiritual  warfare.  Besides  his  colonists  and 
his  men-at-arms,  he  brought  his  secular  priests  as  chap- 
lains and  his  monks  as  missionaries ;  and  his  instructions 
from  the  crown  required  him  to  summon  the  natives,  as  in 
the  famous  "  Requerimiento,"  to  submit  themselves  to  the 
Catholic  faith  and  to  the  king  of  Spain,  under  threat  of  the 
sword  and  slavery.  The  invaders  found  a  different  temper 
in  the  natives  from  what  was  encountered  in  Mexico  and 
Peru,  where  the  populations  were  miserably  subjugated, 
or  in  the  islands,  where  they  were  first  enslaved  and  pres- 
ently completely  exterminated.  The  insolent  invasion  was 
met,  as  it  deserved,  by  effective  volleys  of  arrows,  and  its 
chivalrous  leader  was  driven  back  to  Cuba,  to  die  there  of 
his  wounds. 

It  is  needless  to  recount  the  successive  failures  of  Spanish 
civilization  and  Christianity  to  get  foothold  on  the  domain 

be  enslaved,  whether  or  no.  It  was  on  this  religious  consideration,  clearly 
laid  down  in  a  report  of  the  king's  chaplains,  that  the  atrocious  system  of  en- 
rnmfendas  was  founded. 


10  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  ii. 

now  included  in  the  United  States.  Not  until  more  than 
forty  years  after  the  attempt  of  Ponce  de  Leon  did  the 
expedition  of  the  ferocious  Menendez  effect  a  permanent 
establishment  on  the  coast  of  Florida.  In  September,  1 565, 
the  foundations  of  the  oldest  city  in  the  United  States,  St. 
Augustine,  were  laid  with  solemn  religious  rites  by  the 
toil  of  the  first  negro  slaves ;  and  the  event  was  signalized 
by  one  of  the  most  horrible  massacres  in  recorded  history, 
the  cold-blooded  and  perfidious  extermination,  almost  to 
the  last  man,  woman,  and  child,  of  a  colony  of  French 
Protestants  that  had  been  planted  a  few  months  before  at 
the  mouth  of  the  St.  John's  River. 

The  colony  thus  inaugurated  seemed  to  give  every 
promise  of  permanent  success  as  a  center  of  religious  in- 
fluence. The  spiritual  work  was  naturally  and  wisely 
divided  into  the  pastoral  care  of  the  Spanish  garrisons  and 
settlements,  which  was  taken  in  charge  by  "secular" 
priests,  and  the  mission  work  among  the  Indians,  committed 
to  friars  of  those  "  regular  "  orders  whose  solid  organization 
and  independence  of  the  episcopal  hierarchy,  and  whose 
keen  emulation  in  enterprises  of  self-denial,  toil,  and  peril, 
have  been  so  large  an  element  of  strength,  and  sometimes 
of  weakness,  in  the  Roman  system.  In  turn,  the  mission 
field  of  the  Floridas  was  occupied  by  the  Dominicans,  the 
Jesuits,  and  the  Franciscans.  Before  the  end  of  seventy 
years  from  the  founding  of  St.  Augustine  the  number  of 
Christian  Indians  was  reckoned  at  twenty-five  or  thirty 
thousand,  distributed  among  forty-four  missions,  under  the 
direction  of  thirty-five  Franciscan  missionaries,  while  the 
city  of  St.  Augustine  was  fully  equipped  with  religious 
institutions  and  organizations.  Grave  complaints  are  on 
record,  which  indicate  that  the  great  number  of  the  Indian 
converts  was  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  meager  advance- 
ment in  Christian  grace  and  knowledge ;  but  with  these 


A//SS/OA'S  IN  NEW  MEXICO.  II 

indications  of  shortcoming  in  the  missionaries  there  are 
honorable  proofs  of  dihgent  devotion  to  duty  in  the  creat- 
ing of  a  literature  of  instruction  in  the  barbarous  languages 
of  the  peninsula. 

For  one  hundred  and  fifteen  years  Spain  and  the  Spanish 
missionaries  had  exclusive  possession  in  Florida,  and  it  vi^as 
duringthis  period  that  these  imposing  results  were  achieved. 
In  1680  a  settlement  of  Scotch  Presbyterians  at  Port  Royal 
in  South  Carolina  seemed  like  a  menace  to  the  Spanish 
domination.  It  was  wholly  characteristic  of  the  Spanish 
colony  to  seize  the  sword  at  once  and  destroy  its  nearest 
Christian  neighbor.  It  took  the  sword,  and  perished  by 
the  sword.  The  war  of  races  and  sects  thus  inaugurated 
went  on,  with  intervals  of  quiet,  until  the  Treaty  of  Paris, 
in  1763,  transferred  Florida  to  the  British  crown.  No 
longer  sustained  by  the  terror  of  the  Spanish  arms  and  by 
subsidies  from  the  Spanish  treasury,  the  whole  fabric  of 
Spanish  civilization  and  Christianization,  at  the  end  of  a 
history  of  almost  two  centuries,  tumbled  at  once  to  com- 
plete ruin  and  extinction. 

The  story  of  the  planting  of  Christian  institutions  in  New 
Mexico  runs  parallel  with  the  early  history  of  Florida. 
Omitting  from  this  brief  summary  the  first  discovery  of 
these  regions  by  fugitives  from  one  of  the  disastrous  early 
attempts  to  effect  a  settlement  on  the  Florida  coast,  omit- 
ting (what  we  would  fain  narrate)  the  stories  of  heroic 
adventure  and  apostolic  zeal  and  martyrdom  which  ante- 
date the  permanent  occupation  of  the  country,  we  note 
the  arrival,  in  1598,  of  a  strong,  numerous,  and  splendidly 
equipped  colony,  and  the  founding  of  a  Christian  city  in 
the  heart  of  the  American  continent.  As  usual  in  such 
Spanish  enterprises,  the  missionary  work  was  undertaken 
by  a  body  of  Franciscan  friars.  After  the  first  months  of 
hardship  and  discouragement,  the  work  of  the  Christian 


12  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  n. 

colony,  and  especially  the  work  of  evangelization  among 
the  Indians,  went  forward  at  a  marvelous  rate.  Reinforce- 
ments both  of  priests  and  of  soldiers  were  received  from 
Mexico ;  by  the  end  of  ten  years  baptisms  were  reported 
to  the  number  of  eight  thousand;  the  entire  population  of 
the  province  was  reckoned  as  being  within  the  pale  of  the 
church ;  not  less  than  sixty  Franciscan  friars  at  once  were 
engaged  in  the  double  service  of  pastors  and  missionaries. 
The  triumph  of  the  gospel  and  of  Spanish  arms  seemed 
complete  and  permanent. 

Fourscore  years  after  the  founding  of  the  colony  and 
mission  the  sudden  explosion  of  a  conspiracy,  which  for  a 
long  time  had  been  secretly  preparing,  revealed  the  true 
value  of  the  allegiance  of  the  Indians  to  the  Spanish  gov- 
ernment and  of  their  conversion  to  Christ.  Confounding 
in  a  common  hatred  the  missionaries  and  the  tyrannous 
conquerors,  who  had  been  associated  in  a  common  policy, 
the  Christian  Indians  turned  upon  their  rulers  and  their 
pastors  alike  with  undiscriminating  warfare.  "  In  a  few 
weeks  no  Spaniard  was  in  New  Mexico  north  of  El  Paso. 
Christianity  and  civilization  were  swept  away  at  one  blow." 
The  successful  rebels  bettered  the  instruction  that  they 
had  received  from  their  rejected  pastors.  The  measures 
of  compulsion  that  had  been  used  to  stamp  out  every 
vestige  of  the  old  religion  were  put  into  use  against  the 
new. 

The  cause  of  Catholic  Christianity  in  New  Mexico  never 
recovered  from  this  stunning  blow.  After  twenty  years 
the  Spanish  power,  taking  advantage  of  the  anarchy  and 
depopulation  of  the  province,  had  reoccupied  its  former 
posts  by  military  force,  the  missionaries  were  brought 
back  under  armed  protection,  the  practice  of  the  ancient 
religion  was  suppressed  by  the  strong  hand,  and  efforts, 
too  often  unsuccessful,  were  made  to  win  back  the  apostate 


M/SSIOXS  IX  CALIFORNIA.  13 

tribes  to  something  more  than  a  sullen  submission  to  the 
government  and  the  religion  of  their  conquerors.  The 
later  history  of  Spanish  Christianity  in  New  Mexico  is  a 
history  of  decline  and  decay,  enlivened  by  the  usual  con- 
tentions between  the  "regular"  clergy  and  the  episcopal 
government.  The  white  population  increased,  the  Indian 
population  dwindled.  Religion  as  set  forth  by  an  exotic 
clergy  became  an  object  of  indifference  when  it  was  not 
an  object  of  hatred.  In  1845  the  Bishop  of  Durango, 
visiting  the  province,  found  an  Indian  population  of  twenty 
thousand  in  a  total  of  eighty  thousand.  The  clergy  num- 
bered only  seventeen  priests.  Three  years  later  the  prov- 
ince became  part  of  the  United  States. 

To  complete  the  story  of  the  planting  of  Spanish  Chris- 
tianity within  the  present  boundaries  of  the  United  States, 
it  is  necessary  to  depart  from  the  merely  chronological 
order  of  American  church  history ;  for,  although  the  im- 
mense adventurousness  of  Spanish  explorers  by  sea  and 
land  had,  early  in  the  sixteenth  century,  made  known  to 
Christendom  the  coasts  and  harbors  of  the  Californias,  the 
beginnings  of  settlement  and  missions  on  that  Pacific  coast 
date  from  so  late  as  1 769.  At  this  period  the  method  of 
such  work  had  become  settled  into  a  system.  The  organi- 
zation was  threefold,  including  (i)  the  garrison  town,  (2) 
the  Spanish  settlement,  and  (3)  the  mission,  at  which  the 
Indian  neophytes  were  gathered  under  the  tutelage  and 
strict  government  of  the  convent  of  Franciscan  friars.  The 
whole  system  was  sustained  by  the  authority  and  the  lavish 
subventions  of  the  Spanish  government,  and  herein  lay  its 
strength  and,  as  the  event  speedily  proved,  its  fatal  weak- 
ness. The  inert  and  feeble  character  of  the  Indians  of  that 
region  offered  little  excuse  for  the  atrocious  cruelties  that 
had  elsewhere  marked  the  Spanish  occupation ;  but  the 
paternal  kindness  of  the  stronger  race  was  hardly  less 


14  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  ii. 

hurtful.  The  natives  were  easily  persuaded  to  become  by 
thousands  the  dependents  and  servants  of  the  missions. 
Conversion  went  on  apace.  At  the  end  of  sixty-five  years 
from  the  founding  of  the  missions  their  twenty-one  stations 
numbered  a  Christian  native  population  of  more  than  thirty 
thousand,  and  were  possessed  of  magnificent  wealth,  agri- 
cultural and  commercial.  In  that  very  year  (1834)  the 
long-intended  purpose  of  the  government  to  release  the 
Indians  from  their  almost  slavery  under  the  missions,  and 
to  distribute  the  vast  property  in  severalty,  was  put  in 
force.  In  eight  years  the  more  than  thirty  thousand 
Catholic  Indians  had  dwindled  to  less  than  five  thousand ; 
the  enormous  estates  of  the  missions  were  dissipated ;  the 
converts  lapsed  into  savagery  and  paganism. 

Meanwhile  the  Spanish  population  had  gone  on  slowly 
increasing.  In  the  year  1840,  seventy  years  from  the 
Spanish  occupancy,  it  had  risen  to  nearly  six  thousand ; 
but  it  was  a  population  the  spiritual  character  of  which 
gave  little  occasion  of  boasting  to  the  Spanish  church. 
Tardy  and  feeble  efforts  had  been  instituted  to  provide  it 
with  an  organized  parish  ministry,  when  the  supreme  and 
exclusive  control  of  that  country  ceased  from  the  hands 
that  so  long  had  held  it.  "  The  vineyard  was  taken  away, 
and  given  to  other  husbandmen."  In  the  year  1848  Cali- 
fornia was  annexed  to  the  United  States. 

This  condensed  story  of  Spanish  Christianity  within  the 
present  boundaries  of  the  United  States  is  absurdly  brief 
compared  with  the  vast  extent  of  space,  the  three  centuries 
of  time,  and  what  seemed  at  one  time  the  grandeur  of 
results  involved  in  it.  But  in  truth  it  has  strangely  little 
connection  with  the  extant  Christianity  of  our  country. 
It  is  almost  as  completely  severed  from  historical  relation 
with  the  church  of  the  present  day  as  the  missions  of  the 
Greenlanders  in  the  centuries  before  Columbus,     If  we 


EXTINCTION  OF  SPANISH  MISSIONS.  1 5 

distinguish  justly  between  the  Christian  work  and  its  un- 
christian and  almost  satanic  admixtures,  we  can  join  with- 
out reserve  both  in  the  eulogy  and  in  the  lament  with 
which  the  Catholic  historian  sums  up  his  review :  "  It  was 
a  glorious  work,  and  the  recital  of  it  impresses  us  by  the 
vastness  and  success  of  the  toil.  Yet,  as  we  look  around 
to-day,  we  can  find  nothing  of  it  that  remains.  Names  of 
saints  in  melodious  Spanish  stand  out  from  maps  in  all  that 
section  where  the  Spanish  monk  trod,  toiled,  and  died. 
A  few  thousand  Christian  Indians,  descendants  of  those 
they  converted  and  civiHzed,  still  survive  in  New  Mexico 
and  Arizona,  and  that  is  all."  ^ 

1  "The  Roman  Catholic  Church   in  the   United   States,"   by  Professor 
Thomas  O'Gorman  (vol.  ix.,  American  Church  History  Series),  p.  112. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE    PROJECT    OF    FRENCH    EMPIRE    AND    EVANGELIZA- 
TION— ITS  WIDE  AND  RAPID  SUCCESS — ITS 
SUDDEN   EXTINCTION. 

For  a  full  century,  from  the  discovery  of  the  New  World 
until  the  first  effective  effort  at  occupation  by  any  other 
European  people,  the  Spanish  church  and  nation  had  held 
exclusive  occupancy  of  the  North  American  continent. 
The  Spanish  enterprises  of  conquest  and  colonization  had 
been  carried  forward  with  enormous  and  unscrupulous 
energy,  and  alongside  of  them  and  involved  with  them  had 
been  borne  the  Spanish  chaplaincies  and  missions,  sustained 
from  the  same  treasury,  in  some  honorable  instances  bravely 
protesting  against  the  atrocities  they  were  compelled  to 
witness,  in  other  instances  implicated  in  them  and  sharing 
the  bloody  profits  of  them.  But,  unquestionable  as  was 
the  martial  prowess  of  the  Spanish  soldier  and  adventurer, 
and  the  fearless  devotion  of  the  Spanish  missionary,  there 
appears  nothing  like  systematic  planning  in  all  these  im- 
mense operations.  The  tide  of  conquest  flowed  in  capricious 
courses,  according  as  it  was  invited  by  hopes  of  gold  or  of 
a  passage  to  China,  or  of  some  phantom  of  a  Fountain  of 
Youth  or  a  city  of  Quivira  or  a  Gilded  Man  ;  and  it  seemed 
in  general  to  the  missionary  that  he  could  not  do  else  than 
follow  in  the  course  of  conquest. 

It  is  wholly  characteristic  of  the  French  people  that  its 

l6 


FRENCH  PROJECl'  OF  EMPIRE.  17 

entering  at  last  upon  enterprises  of  colonization  and  mis- 
sions should  be  with  large  forecasting  of  the  future  and 
with  the  methods  of  a  grand  strategy. 

We  can  easily  believe  that  the  famous  "  Bull  of  Parti- 
tion" of  Pope  Alexander  VI.  was  not  one  of  the  hindrances 
that  so  long  delayed  the  beginnings  of  a  New  France  in  the 
West.  Incessant  dynastic  wars  with  near  neighbors,  the 
final  throes  of  the  long  struggle  between  the  crown  and 
the  great  vassals,  and  finally  the  religious  wars  that  cul- 
minated in  the  awful  slaughter  of  St.  Bartholomew's,  and 
ended  at  the  close  of  the  century  with  the  politic  conver- 
sion and  the  coronation  of  Henry  IV. — these  were  among 
the  causes  that  had  held  back  the  great  nation  from  distant 
undertakings.  But  thoughts  of  great  things  to  be  achieved 
in  the  New  World  had  never  for  long  at  a  time  been  absent 
from  the  minds  of  Frenchmen.  The  annual  visits  of  the 
Breton  fishing-fleets  to  the  banks  of  Newfoundland  kept 
in  mind  such  rights  of  discovery  as  were  alleged  by  France, 
and  kept  attention  fixed  in  the  direction  of  the  great  gulf 
and  river  of  St.  Lawrence.  Long  before  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century  Jacques  Cartier  had  explored  the 
St.  Lawrence  beyond  the  commanding  position  which  he 
named  Montreal,  and  a  royal  commission  had  issued,  under 
which  he  was  to  undertake  an  enterprise  of  "  discovery, 
settlement,  and  the  conversion  of  the  Indians."  But  it 
was  not  till  the  year  1608  that  the  first  permanent  French 
settlement  was  effected.  With  the  coup  d'ceil  of  a  general 
or  the  foresight  of  a  prophet,  Champlain,  the  illustrious 
first  founder  of  French  empire  in  America,  in  1608  fixed 
the  starting-point  of  it  at  the  natural  fortress  of  Quebec. 
How  early  the  great  project  had  begun  to  take  shape  in 
the  leading  minds  of  the  nation  it  may  not  be  easy  to 
determine.  It  was  only  after  the  adventurous  explorations 
of  the  French  pioneers,  traders,  and  friars — men  of  hke 


1 8  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  ill. 

boundless  enthusiasm  and  courage — had  been  crowned  by 
the  achievement  of  La  Salle,  who  first  of  men  traversed  the 
two  great  waterways  of  the  continent  from  the  Gulf  of  St. 
Lawrence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  that  the  amazing  possi- 
bilities of  it  were  fully  revealed.  But,  whosesoever  scheme 
it  was,  a  more  magnificent  project  of  empire,  secular  and 
spiritual,  has  never  entered  into  the  heart  of  man.  It  seems 
to  have  been  native  to  the  American  soil,  springing  up  in 
the  hearts  of  the  French  pioneer  explorers  themselves;^ 
but  by  its  grandeur,  and  at  the  same  time  its  unity,  it  was 
of  a  sort  to  delight  the  souls  of  Sully  and  Richelieu  and 
of  their  masters.  Under  thin  and  dubious  claims  by  right 
of  discovery,  through  the  immense  energy  and  daring  of 
her  explorers,  the  heroic  zeal  of  her  missionaries,  and  not 
so  much  by  the  prowess  of  her  soldiers  as  by  her  craft  in 
diplomacy  with  savage  tribes,  France  was  to  assert  and 
make  good  her  title  to  the  basin  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and 
the  lakes,  and  the  basin  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.  From  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  through  the  core  of  the  continent, 
was  to  be  drawn  a  cordon  of  posts,  military,  commercial, 
and  religious,  with  other  outlying  stations  at  strategic 
points  both  eastward  and  westward.  The  only  external 
interference  with  this  scheme  that  could  be  apprehended 
at  its  inception  was  from  the  Spanish  colonies,  already 
decaying  and  shrinking  within  their  boundaries  to  the  west 
and  to  the  southeast,  and  from  a  puny  little  English  settle- 
ment started  only  a  year  before,  with  a  doubtful  hold  on 
life,  on  the  bank  of  the  James  River.  A  dozen  years  later  a 
pitiably  feeble  company  of  Pilgrims  shall  make  their  land- 
ing at  Plymouth  to  try  the  not  hopeful  experiment  of  liv- 
ing in  the  wilderness,  and  a  settlement  of  Swedes  in  Dela- 
ware and  of  Hollanders  on  the  Hudson  shall  be  added  to 

1  So  Parkman. 


THE  FRENCH  MISSIONS.  1 9 

the  incongruous,  unconcerted,  mutually  jealous  plantations 
that  begin  to  take  root  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  Not 
only  grandeur  and  sagacity  of  conception,  but  success  in 
achievement,  is  illustrated  by  the  comparative  area  occu- 
pied by  the  three  great  European  powers  on  the  continent 
of  North  America  at  the  end  of  a  century  and  a  half  from 
the  founding  of  Quebec  in  1608.  Dividing  the  continent 
into  twenty-five  equal  parts,  the  French  claimed  and  seemed 
to  hold  firmly  in  possession  twenty  parts,  the  Spanish  four 
parts,  and  the  English  one  part.^ 

The  comparison  between  the  Spanish  and  the  French 
methods  of  colonization  and  missions  in  America  is  at 
almost  every  point  honorable  to  the  French.  Instead  of 
a  greedy  scramble  after  other  men's  property  in  gold  and 
silver,  the  business  basis  of  the  French  enterprises  was  to 
consist  in  a  widely  organized  and  laboriously  prosecuted 
traffic  in  furs.  Instead  of  a  series  of  desultory  and  savage 
campaigns  of  conquest,  the  ferocity  of  which  was  aggra- 
vated by  the  show  of  zeal  for  the  kingdom  of  righteousness 
and  peace,  was  a  large-minded  and  far-sighted  scheme  of 
empire,  under  which  remote  and  hostile  tribes  were  to  be 
combined  by  ties  of  mutual  interest  and  common  advan- 
tage. And  the  missions,  instead  of  following  servilely  in 
the  track  of  bloody  conquest  to  assume  the  tutelage  of 
subjugated  and  enslaved  races,  were  to  share  with  the 
soldier  and  the  trader  the  perilous  adventures  of  explora- 
tion, and  not  so  much  to  be  supported  and  defended  as  to 
be  themselves  the  support  and  protection  of  the  settle- 
ments, through  the  influence  of  Christian  love  and  self-sac- 
rifice over  the  savage  heart.  Such  elements  of  moral  dig- 
nity, as  well  as  of  imperial  grandeur,  marked  the  plans  for 
the  French  occupation  of  North  America. 

To  a  wonderful  extent  those  charged  with  this  enterprise 
1  Bancroft's  "  United  States,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  267. 


20  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  in. 

were  worthy  of  the  task.  Among  the  military  and  civil 
leaders  of  it,  from  Champlain  to  Montcalm,  were  men  that 
would  have  honored  the  best  days  of  French  chivalry. 
The  energy  and  daring  of  the  French  explorers,  whether 
traders  or  missionaries,  have  not  been  equaled  in  the  pio- 
neer work  of  other  races.  And  the  annals  of  Christian 
martyrdom  may  be  searched  in  vain  for  more  heroic  ex- 
amples of  devotion  to  the  work  of  the  gospel  than  those 
which  adorn  the  history  of  the  French  missions  in  North 
America.  What  magnificent  results  might  not  be  expected 
from  such  an  enterprise,  in  the  hands  of  such  men,  sustained 
by  the  resources  of  the  most  powerful  nation  and  national 
church  in  Christendom ! 

From  the  founding  of  Quebec,  in  1608,  the  expansion 
of  the  French  enterprise  was  swift  and  vast.  By  the  end 
of  fifty  years  Quebec  had  been  equipped  with  hospital, 
nunnery,  seminary  for  the  education  of  priests,  all  affluently 
endowed  from  the  wealth  of  zealous  courtiers,  and  served 
in  a  noble  spirit  of  self-devotion  by  the  choicest  men  and 
women  that  the  French  church  could  furnish;  besides 
these  institutions,  the  admirable  plan  of  a  training  colony, 
at  which  converted  Indians  should  be  trained  to  civilized 
life,  was  realized  at  Sillery,  in  the  neighborhood.  The 
sacred  city  of  Montreal  had  been  established  as  a  base  for 
missions  to  the  remoter  west.  Long  in  advance  of  the 
settlement  at  Plymouth,  French  Christianity  was  actively 
and  beneficently  busy  among  the  savages  of  eastern  Maine, 
among  the  so-called  "  neutral  nations  "  by  the  Niagara, 
among  the  fiercely  hostile  Iroquois  of  northern  New  York, 
by  Lake  Huron  and  Lake  Nipissing,  and,  with  wonderful 
tokens  of  success,  by  the  Falls  of  St.  Mary.  "  Thus  did 
the  rehgious  zeal  of  the  French  bear  the  cross  to  the  banks 
of  the  St.  Mary  and  the  confines  of  Lake  Superior,  and 
look  wistfully  toward  the  homes  of  the  Sioux  in  the  valley 


EXPANS/OA'  OF  iVElV  FJiAXCE.  21 

of  the  Mississippi,  fiv^e  years  before  the  New  England  EUot 
had  addressed  the  tribe  of  Indians  that  dwelt  within  six 
miles  of  Boston  harbor."  ^ 

Thirty  years  more  passed,  bringing  the  story  down  to 
the  memorable  year  1688.  The  French  posts,  military, 
commercial,  and  religious,  had  been  pushed  westward  to 
the  head  of  Lake  Superior.  The  Mississippi  had  been 
discovered  and  explored,  and  the  colonies  planted  from 
Canada  along  its  banks  and  the  banks  of  its  tributaries 
had  been  met  by  the  expeditions  proceeding  direct  from 
France  through  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  claims  of  France 
in  America  included  not  only  the  vast  domain  of  Canada, 
but  a  half  of  Maine,  a  half  of  Vermont,  more  than  a  half 
of  New  York,  the  entire  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and 
Texas  as  far  as  the  Rio  Bravo  del  Norte.-  And  these 
claims  were  asserted  by  actual  and  almost  undisputed  oc- 
cupancy. 

The  seventy  years  that  followed  were  years  of  "  storm 
and  stress  "  for  the  French  colonies  and  missions.  The 
widening  areas  occupied  by  the  French  and  by  the  English 
settlers  brought  the  rival  establishments  into  nearer  neigh- 
borhood, into  sharper  competition,  and  into  bloody  colli- 
sion. Successive  European  wars — King  William's  War, 
Queen  Anne's  War  (of  the  Spanish  succession),  King 
George's  War  (of  the  Austrian  succession) — involved  the 
dependencies  of  France  and  those  of  England  in  the  con- 
flicts of  their  sovereigns.  These  were  the  years  of  terror 
along  the  exposed  northern  frontier  of  English  settlements 
in  New  England  and  New  York,  when  massacre  and  burn- 
ing by  bands  of  savages,  under  French  instigation  and 
leadership,  made  the  names  of  Haverhill  and  Deerfield  and 
Schenectady  memorable  in  American  history,  and  when, 

1  Bancroft's  "  United  States,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  131. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  175. 


22  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  iii. 

in  desperate  campaigns  against  the  Canadian  strongholds, 
the  colonists  vainly  sought  to  protect  themselves  from  the 
savages  by  attacking  the  centers  from  which  the  murder- 
ous forays  v^ere  directed.  But  each  successive  treaty  of 
peace  between  England  and  France  confirmed  and  recon- 
firmed the  French  claims  to  the  main  part  of  her  American 
domain.  The  advances  of  French  missions  and  settlements 
continued  southward  and  westward,  in  spite  of  jealousy  in 
European  cabinets  as  the  imposing  magnitude  of  the  plans 
of  French  empire  became  more  distinctly  disclosed,  and  in 
spite  of  the  struggles  of  the  English  colonies  both  North 
and  South.  When,  on  the  4th  of  July,  1754,  Colonel 
George  Washington  surrendered  Fort  Necessity,  near  the 
fork  of  the  Ohio,  to  the  French,  "  in  the  whole  valley  of 
the  Mississippi,  to  its  headsprings  in  the  AUeghanies,  no 
standard  floated  but  that  of  France."  ^ 

There  seemed  little  reason  to  doubt  that  the  French 
empire  in  America,  which  for  a  century  and  a  half  had 
gone  on  expanding  and  strengthening,  would  continue  to 
expand  and  strengthen  for  centuries  to  come.  Sudden  as 
Hghtning,  in  August,  1756,  the  Seven  Years'  War  broke 
out  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe.  The  treaty  with  which 
it  ended,  in  February,  1 763,  transferred  to  Great  Britain, 
together  with  the  Spanish  territory  of  Florida,  all  the 
French  possessions  in  America,  from  the  Arctic  Ocean  to 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  "  As  a  dream  when  one  awaketh," 
the  magnificent  vision  of  empire,  spiritual  and  secular, 
which  for  so  many  generations  had  occupied  the  imagina- 
tion of  French  statesmen  and  churchmen,  was  rudely  and 
forever  dispelled.  Of  the  princely  wealth,  the  brilliant 
talents,  the  unsurpassed  audacity  of  adventure,  the  un- 
equaled  heroism  of  toil  and  martyrdom  expended  on  the 
great  project,  how  strangely  meager  and  evanescent  the 

1  Bancroft,  vol.  iii.,  p.  121. 


FAILURE    OF  FRENCH  MISSIONS.  23 

results !  In  the  districts  of  Lower  Canada  there  remain, 
indeed,  the  institutions  of  a  French  Catholic  population; 
and  the  aspect  of  those  districts,  in  which  the  pledge  of 
full  liberty  to  the  dominant  church  has  been  scrupulously- 
fulfilled  by  the  British  government,  may  reasonably  be 
regarded  as  an  indication  of  what  France  would  have  done 
for  the  continent  in  general.  But  within  the  present  do- 
main of  the  United  States  the  entire  results  of  a  century 
and  a  half  of  French  Catholic  colonization  and  evangeliza- 
tion may  be  summed  up  as  follows :  In  Maine,  a  thousand 
Catholic  Indians  still  remain,  to  remind  one  of  the  time 
when,  as  it  is  boldly  claimed,  the  whole  Indian  population 
of  that  province  were  either  converted  or  under  Jesuit 
training.^  In  like  manner,  a  scanty  score  of  thousands  of 
Catholic  Indians  on  various  reservations  in  the  remote 
West  represent  the  time  when,  at  the  end  of  the  French 
domination,  "  all  the  North  American  Indians  were  more 
or  less  extensively  converted"  to  Catholic  Christianity, 
"all  had  the  gospel  preached  to  them."^  The  splendid 
fruits  of  the  missions  among  the  Iroquois,  from  soil  watered 
by  the  blood  of  martyrs,  were  wasted  to  nothing  in  savage 
intertribal  wars.  Among  the  Choctaws  and  Chickasaws 
of  the  South  and  Southwest,  among  whom  the  gospel  was 
by  and  by  to  win  some  of  its  fairest  trophies,  the  French 
missionaries  achieved  no  great  success.^  The  French  col- 
onies from  Canada,  planted  so  prosperously  along  the 
Western  rivers,  dispersed,  leaving  behind  them  some  strag- 
gling families.  The  abundant  later  growth  of  the  Catholic 
Church  in  that  region  was  to  be  from  other  seed  and  stock. 
The  region  of  Louisiana  alone,  destined  a  generation  later 
to  be  included  within  the  boundaries  of  the  great  republic, 

1  Bishop  O'Gorman,  "  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States," 
p.  136. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  191-193. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  211. 


24  AMERICAN  CHRISTIAXITY.  [Chap.  hi. 

retained  organized  communities  of  French  descent  and 
language;  but,  living  as  they  were  in  utter  unbehef  and 
contempt  of  religion  and  morality,  it  would  be  an  unjust 
reproach  on  Catholicism  to  call  them  Catholic.  The  work 
of  the  gospel  had  got  to  be  begun  from  the  foundation. 
Nevertheless  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  remote  memories 
or  lingering  traditions  of  a  better  age  survived  to  aid  the 
work  of  those  who  by  and  by  should  enter  in  to  rebuild 
the  waste  places.^ 

There  are  not  a  few  of  us,  wise  after  the  event,  who 
recognize  a  final  cause  of  this  surprising  and  almost  dra- 
matic failure,  in  the  manifest  intent  of  divine  Providence 
that  the  field  of  the  next  great  empire  in  the  world's  history 
should  not  become  the  exclusive  domain  of  an  old-world 
monarchy  and  hierarchy  ;  but  the  immediate  efficient  causes 
of  it  are  not  so  obvious.  This,  however,  may  justly  be  said  : 
some  of  the  seeming  elements  of  strength  in  the  French 
colonization  proved  to  be  fatal  elements  of  weakness. 

I.  The  French  colonies  had  the  advantage  of  royal 
patronage,  endowment,-  and  protection,  and  of  unity  of 
counsel  and  direction.  They  were  all  parts  of  one  system, 
under  one  control.  And  their  centers  of  vitality,  head  and 
heart,  were  on  the  other  side  of  the  sea.  Subsisting  upon 
the  strength  of  the  great  monarchy,  they  must  needs  share 
its  fortunes,  evil  as  well  as  good.  When,  after  the  reverses 
of  France  in  the  Seven  Years'  War,  it  became  necessary 
to  accept  hard  terms  of  peace,  the  superb  framework  of 
empire  in  the  West  fell  to  the  disposal  of  the  victors. 
"  America,"  said  Pitt,  "  was  conquered  in  Germany." 

1  See  O'Gorman,  chaps,  ix.-xiv.,  xx. 

2  Mr.  Bancroft,  describing  the  "sad  condition"  of  La  Salle's  colony  at 
Matagorda  after  the  wreck  of  his  richly  laden  store-ship,  adds  that  "  even  now 
this  colony  possessed,  from  the  bounty  of  Louis  XIV.,  more  than  was  con- 
tributed by  all  the  English  monarchs  together  for  the  twelve  English  colonies 
on  the  Atlantic.  Its  number  still  exceeded  that  of  the  colony  of  Smith  in 
Virginia,  or  of  those  who  embarked  in  the  '  IMayflower '  "  (vol.  iii.,  p.  171). 


CA  USES  OF  ■  FREAXH '  FAIL  URE.  2  5 

2.  The  business  basis  of  the  French  colonies,  being  that 
of  trade  with  the  Indians  rather  than  a  self-supporting 
agriculture,  favored  the  swift  expansion  of  these  colonies 
and  their  wide  influence  among  the  Indians.  Scattered 
companies  of  fur-traders  would  be  found  here  and  there, 
wherever  were  favorable  points  for  traffic,  penetrating 
deeply  into  the  wilderness  and  establishing  friendly  busi- 
ness relations  with  the  savages.  It  has  been  observed  that 
the  Romanic  races  show  an  alacrity  for  intermarriage  with 
barbarous  tribes  that  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Teutonic. 
The  result  of  such  relations  is  ordinarily  less  the  elevating 
of  the  lower  race  than  the  dragging  down  of  the  higher ; 
but  it  tends  for  the  time  to  give  great  advantage  in  main- 
taining a  powerful  political  influence  over  the  barbarians. 
Thus  it  was  that  the  French,  few  in  number,  covered  al- 
most the  breadth  of  the  continent  with  their  formidable 
alliances ;  and  these  alliances  were  the  off"ensive  and  de- 
fensive armor  in  which  they  trusted,  but  they  were  also 
their  peril.  Close  alliance  with  one  savage  clan  involved 
war  with  its  enemies.  It  was  an  early  misfortune  of  the 
French  settlers  that  their  close  friendly  relations  with  their 
Huron  neighbors  embattled  against  them  the  fiercest, 
bravest,  and  ablest  of  the  Indian  tribes,  the  confederacy 
of  the  Six  Nations,  which  held,  with  full  appreciation  of 
its  strategic  importance,  the  command  of  the  exits  south- 
ward from  the  valley  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  fierce 
jealousy  of  the  Iroquois  toward  the  allies  of  their  hereditary 
antagonists,  rather  than  any  good  will  toward  white  settlers 
of  other  races,  made  them  an  effectual  check  upon  French 
encroachments  upon  the  slender  line  of  English,  Dutch, 
and  Swedish  settlements  that  stretched  southward  from 
Maine  along  the  Atlantic  coast. 

3.  In  one  aspect  it  was  doubtless  an  advantage  to  the 
French  missions  in  America  that  the  sharp  sectarian  com- 


26  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  hi. 

petitions  between  the  different  clerical  orders  resulted 
finally  in  the  missions  coming  almost  exclusively  under  the 
control  of  the  Jesuit  society.  This  result  insured  to  the 
missions  the  highest  ability  in  administration  and  direction, 
ample  resources  of  various  sorts,  and  a  force  of  missionaries 
whose  personal  virtues  have  won  for  them  unstinted  eulogy 
even  from  unfriendly  sources — men  the  ardor  of  whose 
zeal  was  rigorously  controlled  by  a  more  than  martial 
severity  of  religious  discipline.  But  it  would  be  uncandid 
in  us  to  refuse  attention  to  those  grave  charges  against 
the  society  brought  by  Catholic  authorities  and  Catho- 
lic orders,  and  so  enforced  as,  after  long  and  acrimonious 
controversy,  to  result  in  the  expulsion  of  the  society  from 
almost  every  nation  of  Catholic  Europe,  in  its  being  stig- 
matized by  Pope  Benedict  XIV.,  in  1741,  as  made  up  of 
"  disobedient,  contumacious,  captious,  and  reprobate  per- 
sons," and  at  last  in  its  being  suppressed  and  abolished  by 
Pope  Clement  XIV.,  in  1773,  as  a  nuisance  to  Christendom. 
We  need,  indeed,  to  make  allowance  for  the  intense  ani- 
mosity of  sectarian  strife  among  the  various  Catholic  orders 
in  which  the  charges  against  the  society  were  engendered 
and  unrelentingly  prosecuted;  but  after  all  deductions  it 
is  not  credible  that  the  almost  universal  odium  in  which  it 
was  held  was  provoked  solely  by  its  virtues.  Among  the 
accusations  against  the  society  which  seem  most  clearly 
substantiated  these  two  are  likely  to  be  concerned  in  that 
"  brand  of  ultimate  failure  which  has  invariably  been 
stamped  on  all  its  most  promising  schemes  and  efforts  "  :^ 
first,  a  disposition  to  compromise  the  essential  principles 
of  Christianity  by  politic  concessions  to  heathenism,  so 
that  the  successes  of  the  Jesuit  missions  are  magnified  by 
reports  of  alleged  conversions  that  are  conversions  only  in 

1  Dr.  R.  F.  Littledale,  in  "  Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  vol.  xiii.,  pp.  649- 
652. 


■  CAUSES  OF  FRENCH  FAILURE.  2 "J 

name  and  outward  form;  second,  a  constantly  besetting 
propensity  to  political  intrigue.^  It  is  hardly  to  be  doubted 
that  both  had  their  part  in  the  prodigious  failure  of  the 
French  Catholic  missions  and  settlements  within  the  pres- 
ent boundaries  of  the  United  States.  ^ 

4.  The  conditions  which  favored  the  swift  and  magnifi- 
cent expansion  of  the  French  occupation  were  unfavorable 
to  the  healthy  natural  growth  of  permanent  settlements. 
A  post  of  soldiers,  a  group  of  cabins  of  trappers  and  fur- 
traders,  and  a  mission  of  nuns  and  celibate  priests,  all  to- 
gether give  small  promise  of  rapid  increase  of  population. 
It  is  rather  to  the  fact  that  the  French  settlements,  except 
at  the  seaboard,  were  constituted  so  largely  of  these  ele- 
ments, than  to  any  alleged  sterility  of  the  French  stock, 
that  the  fatal  weakness  of  the  French  occupation  is  to  be 
ascribed.  The  lack  of  French  America  was  men.  The 
population  of  Canada  in  1759,  according  to  census,  was 
about  eighty-two  thousand;^  that  of  New  England  in  1754 
is  estimated  at  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand. 
"  The  white  population  of  five,  or  perhaps  even  of  six,  of 
the  American  provinces  was  greater  singly  than  that  of  all 
Canada,  and  the  aggregate  in  America  exceeded  that  in 
Canada  fourteenfold."^  The  same  sign  of  weakness  is 
recognized  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  cordon  of  French 
settlements.  The  vast  region  of  Louisiana  is  estimated,  at 
fifty  years  from  its  colonization,  at  one  tenth  of  the  strength 
of  the  coeval  province  of  Pennsylvania.* 

1  Both  these  charges  are  solemnly  affirmed  by  the  pope  in  the  bull  of  sup- 
pression of  the  society  (Dr.  R.  F.  Littledale,  in  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica," 
vol.  xiii.,  p.  655). 

2  Bancroft,  vol.  iii.,  p.  320. 
^  Ibid.,  pp.  128,  129. 

*  The  contrast  is  vigorously  emphasized  by  Mr.  Bancroft:  "Such  wzs 
Louisiana  more  than  a  half-century  after  the  first  attempt  at  colonization  by 
La  Salle.  Its  population  may  have  been  five  thousand  whites  and  half  that 
number  of  blacks.  Louis  XIV.  had  fostered  it  with  pride  and  liberal  expend- 
itures ;  an  opulent  merchant,  famed  for  his  successful  enterprise,  assumed 


,8  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Cai-.  .... 

Under  these  hopeless  conditions  the  ?«"*  ^"'-^^^ 
had  not  even  the  alternative  of  keep.ng  the  peace.  The 
state  of  war  was  forced  by  the  .nother  countries.  There 
wa  no  Recourse  for  Canada  except  to  her  savage  alhes, 
won  for  her  through  the  influence  of  the  m.ss.onar.es. 

It  s  us  ly  clahned  that  in  the  mind  of  such  early  leaders 
as  Champ  ain  the  dominant  motive  of  the  French  colon.^ 
as  L^nduipi  _      .  .  unf  ;n  the  cruel  position  into  which 

\"'°",::r:^'forcedH  was  atoo^t  inevitable  that  the 

Christ  and   France  together  m  their   affections^      _    me 

Wood  It  is  one  of  the  most  unhappy  of  the  results  ot 
Siat  savage  warfare  that  in  the  minds  of  the  communities 
tha  suffered  from  it  the  Jesuit  missionary  came  to  be 
ooLd  upon  as  accessory  to  these  abhorrent  crimes 
Deeply  l^it  to  be  lamented  that  men  with  such  eminen 
daims  on  our  admiration  and  reverence  ^^^^f  .^not  be 
t^phantly  clear  of  all  suspicion  of  such  comphcity  We 
gladTy  conce'de  the  claim  ^"  that  the  proof  of  the  comphcity 

Us  direction;  the  Company  of  ^f^^^^^I^^^^^^ 
sient  credit,  had  made  it  t^^^  foundation  of  the  r  hopes  ^^  g^.^^^^  ^.^^^^^^^ 
Louis  XV.  had  sought  to  advance  its  ^^^^^^^^'J^l-^^^^  the  favor  of  the  sav- 
through  nations  from  Biloxi  to  ^Jf.^.^^  ,"^f '  gSv  a  ^vilderness.  All  its 
ages ;  but  still  the  valley  of  the  Mis^'^^'PP'  ^^^  'd  ministers  of  state-had 
pftrons-though  among  them  it  ^"^"^^^ ^^^^f^fjfe  prosperity  which  within 
Sot  accomplished  for  it  in  half  a  centu  y  J  ^'the  ^m^  P  1^  ^^ujam  Penn  to 
the  same  period  sprang  naturally  from  t^e  bene^o 
the  peaceful  settlers  on  the  Delaware      (.^.^l-  "'••?•  ^  ^^ 

1  ''  Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  vol.  xni.,  p.  654- 

2  Bishop  O'Gorman,  pp.  137-^2- 


CAUSES   OF  FRENCH  FAILURE.  29 

is  not  complete  ;  we  could  welcome  some  clear  evidence  in 
disproof  of  it — some  sign  of  a  bold  and  indignant  protest 
against  these  crimes;  we  could  wish  that  the  Jesuit  his- 
torian had  not  boasted  of  these  atrocities  as  proceeding 
from  the  fine  work  of  his  brethren/  and  that  the  anteced- 
ents of  the  Jesuits  as  a  body,  and  their  declared  principles 
of  "  moral  theology,"  were  such  as  raise  no  presumption 
against  them  even  in  unfriendly  minds.  But  we  must  be 
content  with  thankfully  acknowledging  that  divine  change 
which  has  made  it  impossible  longer  to  boast  of  or  even 
justify  such  deeds,  and  which  leaves  no  ground  among 
neighbor  Christians  of  the  present  day  for  harboring  mu- 
tual suspicions  which,  to  the  Christian  ministers  of  French 
and  English  America  of  two  hundred  years  ago  and  less, 
it  was  impossible  to  repress. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  complete  extinction  within  the 
present  domain  of  the  United  States  of  the  magnificent 
beginnings  of  the  projected  French  Catholic  Church  and 
empire.  It  is  only  in  the  most  recent  years,  since  the 
Civil  War,  that  the  results  of  the  work  inaugurated  in 
America  by  Champlain  begin  to  reappear  in  the  field  of 
the  ecclesiastical  history  of  the  United  States.  The  im- 
migration of  Canadian  French  Catholics  into  the  northern 
tier  of  States  has  already  grown  to  considerable  volume, 
and  is  still  growing  in  numbers  and  in  stability  and 
strength,  and  adds  a  new  and  interesting  element  to  the 
many  factors  that  go  to  make  up  the  American  church. 

1  Bancroft,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  187,  188. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

ANTECEDENTS    OF    PERMANENT    CHRISTIAN    COLONIZA- 
TION— THE   DISINTEGRATION    OF    CHRISTENDOM — 
CONTROVERSIES — PERSECUTIONS. 

We  have  briefly  reviewed  the  history  of  two  magnificent 
schemes  of  secular  and  spiritual  empire,  which,  conceived 
in  the  minds  of  great  statesmen  and  churchmen,  sustained 
by  the  resources  of  the  mightiest  kingdoms  of  that  age, 
inaugurated  by  soldiers  of  admirable  prowess,  explorers 
of  unsurpassed  boldness  and  persistence,  and  missionaries 
whose  heroic  faith  has  canonized  them  in  the  veneration 
of  Christendom,  have  nevertheless  come  to  naught. 

We  turn  now  to  observe  the  beginnings,  coinciding  in 
time  with  those  of  the  French  enterprise,  of  a  series  of 
disconnected  plantations  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard, 
established  as  if  at  haphazard,  without  plan  or  mutual 
preconcert,  of  different  languages  and  widely  diverse 
Christian  creeds,  depending  on  scanty  private  resources, 
unsustained  by  governmental  arms  or  treasuries,  but  des- 
tined, in  a  course  of  events  which  no  human  foresight  could 
have  calculated,  to  come  under  the  plastic  influence  of  a 
single  European  power,  to  be  molded  according  to  the 
general  type  of  English  polity,  and  to  become  heir  to 
English  traditions,  literature,  and  language.  These  mu- 
tually alien  and  even  antagonistic  communities  were  to  be 


DISINTEGRATION  OF  CHRISTENDOM.  3  I 

constrained,  by  forces  superior  to  human  control,  first  into 
confederation  and  then  into  union,  and  to  occupy  the 
breadth  of  the  new  continent  as  a  sohd  and  independent 
nation.  The  history  reads  Hke  a  fulfihment  of  the  apoca- 
lyptic imagery  of  a  rock  hewn  from  the  mountain  without 
hands,  moving  on  to  fill  the  earth. 

Looking  back  after  the  event,  we  find  it  easy  to  trace 
the  providential  preparations  for  this  great  result.  There 
were  few  important  events  in  the  course  of  the  sixteenth 
and  early  seventeenth  centuries  that  did  not  have  to  do 
with  it ;  but  the  most  obvious  of  these  antecedents  are  to 
be  found  in  controversies  and  persecutions. 

The  protest  of  northern  Europe  against  the  abuses  and 
corruptions  prevailing  in  the  Roman  Church  was  articulated 
in  the  Augsburg  Confession.  Over  against  it  were  framed 
the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  Thus  the  lines  were 
distinctly  drawn  and  the  warfare  between  contending 
principles  was  joined.  Those  who  fondly  dreamed  of  a 
permanently  united  and  solid  Protestantism  to  withstand 
its  powerful  antagonist  were  destined  to  speedy  and  in- 
evitable disappointment.  There  have  been  many  to  de- 
plore that  so  soon  after  the  protest  of  Augsburg  was  set 
forth  as  embodying  the  common  behef  of  Protestants  new 
parties  should  have  arisen  protesting  against  the  protest. 
The  ordinance  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  instituted  as  a  sacra- 
ment of  universal  Christian  fellowship,  became  (as  so  often 
before  and  since)  the  center  of  contention  and  the  badge 
of  mutual  alienation.  It  was  on  this  point  that  Zwingli 
and  the  Swiss  parted  from  Luther  and  the  Lutherans ;  on 
the  same  point,  in  the  next  generation  of  Reformers,  John 
Calvin,  attempting  to  mediate  between  the  two  contending 
parties,  became  the  founder  of  still  a  third  party,  strong 
not  only  in  the  lucid  and  logical  doctrinal  statements  in 
which  it  delighted,  but  also  in  the  possession  of  a  definite 


32  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  iv. 

scheme  of  republican  church  government  which  became  as 
distinctive  of  the  Calvinistic  or  "  Reformed"  churches  as 
their  doctrine  of  the  Supper.  It  was  at  a  later  epoch  still 
that  those  insoluble  questions  which  press  most  inexorably 
for  consideration  when  theological  thought  and  study  are 
most  serious  and  earnest — the  questions  that  concern  the 
divine  sovereignty  in  its  relation  to  human  freedom  and 
responsibility — arose  in  the  Catholic  Church  to  divide 
Jesuit  from  Dominican  and  Franciscan,  and  in  the  Reformed 
churches  to  divide  the  Arminians  from  the  disciples  of 
Gomar  and  Turretin.  All  these  divisions  among  the 
European  Christians  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  to 
have  their  important  bearing  on  the  planting  of  the  Chris- 
tian church  in  America. 

In  view  of  the  destined  predominance  of  English  influ- 
ence in  the  seaboard  colonies  of  America,  the  history  of 
the  divisions  of  the  Christian  people  of  England  is  of  pre- 
eminent importance  to  the  beginnings  of  the  American 
church.  The  curiously  diverse  elements  that  entered  into 
the  English  Reformation,  and  the  violent  vicissitudes  that 
marked  the  course  of  it,  were  all  represented  in  the  parties 
existing  among  English  Christians  at  the  period  of  the 
planting  of  the  colonies. 

The  political  and  dynastic  character  of  the  movements 
that  detached  the  English  hierarchy  from  the  Roman  see 
had  for  one  inevitable  result  to  leaven  the  English  church 
as  a  lump  with  the  leaven  of  Herod.  That  considerable 
part  of  the  clergy  and  people  that  moved  to  and  fro,  with- 
out so  much  as  the  resistance  of  any  very  formidable  vis 
inertice,  with  the  change  of  the  monarch  or  of  the  mon- 
arch's caprice,  might  leave  the  student  of  the  history  of 
those  times  in  doubt  as  to  whether  they  belonged  to  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  or  to  the  kingdom  of  this  world.  But, 
however  severe  the  judgment  that  any  may  pass  upon  the 


CHRISTIAN  PARTIES  IN  ENGLAND.  H 

character  and  motives  of  Henry  VIII.  and  of  the  councilors 
of  Edward,  there  will  hardly  be  any  seriously  to  question 
that  the  movements  directed  by  these  men  soon  came  to 
be  infused  with  more  serious  and  spiritual  influences.  The 
Lollardy  of  Wycliffe  and  his  fellows  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury had  been  severely  repressed  and  driven  into  "  occult 
conventicles,"  but  had  not  been  extinguished;  the  Bible 
in  English,  many  times  retouched  after  WycHffe's  days, 
and  perfected  by  the  refugees  at  Geneva  from  the  Marian 
persecutions,  had  become  a  common  household  book ;  and 
those  exiles  themselves,  returning  from  the  various  centers 
of  fervid  religious  thought  and  feeling  in  Holland  and 
Germany  and  Switzerland,  had  brought  with  them  an  aug- 
mented spiritual  faith,  as  well  as  intensified  and  sharply 
defined  convictions  on  the  questions  of  theology  and  church 
order  that  were  debated  by  the  scholars  of  the  Continent. 
It  was  impossible  that  the  diverse  and  antagonist  elements 
thus  assembled  should  not  work  on  one  another  with  vio- 
lent reactions.  By  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century 
not  less  than  four  categories  would  suffice  to  classify  the 
people  of  England  according  to  their  religious  differences. 
First,  there  were  those  who  still  continued  to  adhere  to 
the  Roman  see.  Secondly,  those  who,  either  from  con- 
viction or  from  expediency  or  from  indifference,  were  con- 
tent with  the  state  church  of  England  in  the  shape  in 
which  Elizabeth  and  her  parliaments  had  left  it ;  this  class 
naturally  included  the  general  multitude  of  Englishmen, 
religious,  irreligious,  and  non-religious.  Thirdly,  there 
were  those  who,  not  refusing  their  adhesion  to  the  national 
church  as  by  law  established,  nevertheless  earnestly  desired 
to  see  it  more  completely  purified  from  doctrinal  errors 
and  practical  corruptions,  and  who  qualified  their  conform- 
ity to  it  accordingly.  Fourthly,  there  were  the  few  who 
distinctly  repudiated  the  national  church  as  a  false  church, 


34  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  iv. 

coming  out  from  her  as  from  Babylon,  determined  upon 
"  reformation  without  tarrying  for  any."  Finally,  follow- 
ing upon  these,  more  radical,  not  to  say  more  logical,  than 
the  rest,  came  a  fifth  party,  the  followers  of  George  Fox. 
Not  one  of  these  five  parties  but  has  valid  claims,  both  in 
its  principles  and  in  its  membership,  on  the  respect  of  his- 
tory ;  not  one  but  can  point  to  its  saints  and  martyrs ;  not 
one  but  was  destined  to  play  a  quite  separate  and  distinct 
and  highly  important  part  in  the  planting  of  the  church  of 
Christ  in  America.  They  are  designated,  for  convenience' 
sake,  as  the  Catholics,  the  Conformists,  the  Puritans  or  Re- 
formists, the  Separatists  (of  whom  were  the  Pilgrims),  and 
the  Quakers. 

Such  a  Christendom  was  it,  so  disorganized,  divided, 
and  subdivided  into  parties  and  sects,  which  was  to  furnish 
the  materials  for  the  peopling  of  the  new  continent  with 
a  Christian  population.  It  would  seem  that  the  same 
"somewhat  not  ourselves,"  which  had  defeated  in  succes- 
sion the  plans  of  two  mighty  nations  to  subject  the  New 
World  to  a  single  hierarchy,  had  also  provided  that  no  one 
form  or  organization  of  Christianity  should  be  exclusive 
or  even  dominant  in  the  occupation  of  the  American  soil. 
From  one  point  of  view  the  American  colonies  will  present 
a  sorry  aspect.  Schism,  mutual  alienation,  antagonism, 
competition,  are  uncongenial  to  the  spirit  of  the  gospel, 
which  seeks  "  that  they  all  may  be  one."  And  yet  the 
history  of  the  church  has  demonstrated  by  many  a  sad 
example  that  this  offense  "  must  needs  come."  No  widely 
extended  organization  of  church  discipline  in  exclusive 
occupation  of  any  country  has  ever  long  avoided  the  in- 
tolerable mischiefs  attendant  on  spiritual  despotism.  It 
was  a  shock  to  the  hopes  and  the  generous  sentiments  of 
those  who  had  looked  to  see  one  undivided  body  of  a  re- 
formed church  erected  over  against  the  medieval  church. 


THE    COMMUXION  OF  SAINTS.  35 

from  the  corruptions  of  which  they  had  revolted,  when 
they  saw  Protestantism  go  asunder  into  the  several  churches 
of  the  Lutheran  and  the  Reformed  confessions ;  there  are 
many  even  now  to  deplore  it  as  a  disastrous  set-back  to 
the  progress  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  But  in  the  calm- 
ness of  our  long  retrospect  it  is  easy  for  us  to  recognize 
that  whatever  jurisdiction  should  have  been  established 
over  an  undivided  Protestant  church  would  inevitably 
have  proved  itself,  in  no  long  time,  just  such  a  yoke  as 
neither  the  men  of  that  time  nor  their  fathers  had  been 
able  to  bear.  Fifteen  centuries  of  church  history  have  not 
been  wasted  if  thereby  the  Christian  people  have  learned 
that  the  pursuit  of  Christian  unity  through  administrative 
or  corporate  or  diplomatic  union  is  following  the  wrong 
road,  and  that  the  one  Holy  Cathohc  Church  is  not  the 
corporation  of  saints,  but  their  communion. 

The  new  experiment  of  church  life  that  was  initiated  in 
the  colonization  of  America  is  still  in  progress.  The  new 
States  were  to  be  planted  not  only  with  diverse  companies 
from  the  Old  World,  but  with  all  the  definitely  organized 
sects  by  which  the  map  of  Christendom  was  at  that  time 
variegated,  to  which  should  be  added  others  of  native  ori- 
gin. Notwithstanding  successive  "  booms "  now  of  one 
and  then  of  another,  it  was  soon  to  become  obvious  to  all 
that  no  one  of  these  mutually  jealous  sects  was  to  have 
any  exclusive  predominance,  even  over  narrow  precincts  of 
territory.  The  old-world  state  churches,  which  under  the 
rule,  cnjtis  regio  ejus  religio,  had  been  supreme  and  exclu- 
sive each  in  its  jurisdiction,  were  to  find  themselves  side 
by  side  and  mingled  through  the  community  on  equal  terms 
with  those  over  whom  in  the  old  country  they  had  domi- 
neered as  dissenters,  or  whom  perhaps  they  had  even 
persecuted  as  heretics  or  as  Antichrist.  Thus  placed,  they 
were  to  be  trained  by  the  discipline  of  divine  Providence 


3& 


AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chai'.  i\', 


and  by  the  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit  from  persecution  to 
toleration,  from  toleration  to  mutual  respect,  and  to  coop- 
eration in  matters  of  common  concern  in  the  advancement 
of  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  What  further  remains  to  be 
tried  is  the  question  whether,  if  not  the  sects,  then  the 
Christian  hearts  in  each  sect,  can  be  brought  to  take  the 
final  step  from  mutual  respect  to  mutual  love,  "that  we 
henceforth,  speaking  truth  in  love,  may  grow  up  in  all  things 
into  him,  which  is  the  head,  even  Christ;  from  whom 
all  the  body  fitly  framed  and  knit  together  through  that 
which  every  joint  supplieth,  according  to  the  working  in 
due  measure  of  each  several  part,  shall  make  the  increase 
of  the  body  unto  the  building  up  of  itself  in  love."  Un- 
less we  must  submit  to  those  philosophers  who  forbid  us 
to  find  in  history  the  evidences  of  final  cause  and  provi- 
dential design,  we  may  surely  look  upon  this  as  a  worthy 
possible  solution  of  the  mystery  of  Providence  in  the 
planting  of  the  church  in  America  in  almost  its  ultimate 
stage  of  schism — that  it  is  the  purpose  of  its  Head,  out  of 
the  mutual  attrition  of  the  sects,  their  disintegration  and 
comminution,  to  bring  forth  such  a  demonstration  of  the 
unity  and  liberty  of  the  children  of  God  as  the  past  ages 
of  church  history  have  failed  to  show. 

That  mutual  intolerance  of  differences  in  religious  behef 
which,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  was,  throughout  Chris- 
tendom, coextensive  with  religious  earnestness  had  its  im- 
portant part  to  play  in  the  colonization  of  America.  Of 
the  persecutions  and  oppressions  which  gave  direct  impulse 
to  the  earliest  colonization  of  America,  the  most  notable 
are  the  following:  (i)  the  persecution  of  the  EngHsh  Puri- 
tans in  the  reigns  of  James  I.  and  Charles  I.,  ending  with 
the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war  in  1642  ;  (2)  the  persecution  of 
the  English  Roman  Catholics  during  the  same  period ;  (3) 
the  persecution  of  the  Enghsh  Quakers  during  the  twenty- 


PERSECUTION  AND    COLOKIZAlUON.  37 

five  years  of  Charles  II.  (1660-85);  (4)  the  persecution 
of  the  French  Huguenots  after  the  revocation  of  the  Edict 
of  Nantes  (1685) ;  (5)  the  disabihties  suffered  by  the  Pres- 
byterians of  the  north  of  Ireland  after  the  English  Revo- 
lution (1688);  (6)  the  ferocious  ravaging  of  the  region  of 
the  Rhenish  Palatinate  by  the  armies  of  Louis  XIV.  in  the 
early  years  of  the  seventeenth  century ;  (7)  the  cruel  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Protestants  of  the  archiepiscopal  duchy  of 
Salzburg  (1731). 

Beyond  dispute,  the  best  and  most  potent  elements  in 
the  settlement  of  the  seaboard  colonies  were  the  companies 
of  earnestly  religious  people  who  from  time  to  time,  under 
severe  compulsion  for  conscience'  sake,  came  forth  from 
tlie  Old  World  as  involuntary  emigrants.  Cruel  wars  and 
persecutions  accompHshed  a  result  in  the  advancement  of 
the  kingdom  of  Christ  which  the  authors  of  them  never 
intended.  But  not  these  agencies  alone  promoted  the  great 
work.  Peace,  prosperity,  wealth,  and  the  hope  of  vv^ealth 
had  their  part  in  it.  The  earliest  successful  enterprises  of 
colonization  were  indeed  marked  with  the  badge  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  among  their  promoters  were  men  whose  lan- 
guage and  deeds  nobly  evince  the  Christian  spirit;  but 
the  enterprises  were  impelled  and  directed  by  commercial 
or  patriotic  considerations.  The  immense  advantages  that 
were  to  accrue  from  them  to  the  world  through  the  wider 
propagation  of  the  gospel  of  Christ  were  not  lost  sight  of 
in  the  projecting  and  organizing  of  the  expeditions,  nor 
were  provisions  for  church  and  ministry  omitted  ;  but  these 
were  incidental,  not  primary. 

This  story  of  the  divine  preparations  carried  forward 
through  unconscious  human  agencies  in  different  lands  and 
ages  for  the  founding  of  the  American  church  is  a  neces- 
sary preamble  to  our  history.  The  scene  of  the  story  is 
now  to  be  shifted  to  the  other  side  of  the  sea. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE    PURITAN    BEGINNINGS  OF   THE    CHURCH  IN   VIR- 
GINIA— ITS    DECLINE   ALMOST   TO    EXTINCTION. 

There  is  sufficient  evidence  that  the  three  Httle  vessels 
which  on  the  13th  of  May,  1607,  were  moored  to  the  trees 
on  the  bank  of  the  James  River  brought  to  the  soil  of 
America  the  germ  of  a  Christian  church.  We  may  feel 
constrained  to  accept  only  at  a  large  discount  the  pious 
official  professions  of  King  James  I.,  and  critically  to 
scrutinize  many  of  the  statements  of  that  brilliant  and 
fascinating  adventurer,  Captain  John  Smith,  whether  con- 
cerning his  friends  or  concerning  his  enemies  or  concerning 
himself.  But  the  beauty  and  dignity  of  the  Christian 
character  shine  unmistakable  in  the  life  of  the  chaplain  to 
the  expedition,  the  Rev.  Robert  Hunt,  and  all  the  more 
radiantly  for  the  dark  and  discouraging  surroundings  in 
which  his  ministry  was  to  be  exercised. 

For  the  company  which  Captain  Smith  and  that  famous 
mariner,  Captain  Bartholomew  Gosnold,  had  by  many 
months  of  labor  and  "  many  a  forgotten  pound  "  of  ex- 
pense succeeded  in  recruiting  for  the  enterprise  was  made 
up  of  most  unhopeful  material  for  the  founding  of  a  Chris- 
tian colony.  Those  were  the  years  of  ignoble  peace  with 
which  the  reign  of  James  began ;  and  the  glittering  hopes 
of  gold  might  well  attract  some  of  the  brave  men  who 
38 


THE  FLAA'TING    OF    VIRGINIA.  39 

had  served  by  sea  or  land  in  the  wars  of  EUzabeth.  But 
the  last  thirty  years  had  furnished  no  instance  of  success, 
and  many  of  disastrous  and  sometimes  tragical  failure,  in 
like  attempts — the  enterprises  of  Humphrey  Gilbert,  of 
Raleigh,  of  John  White,  of  Gosnold  himself,  and  of  Pop- 
ham  and  Gorges.  Even  brave  men  might  hesitate  to 
volunteer  for  the  forlorn  hope  of  another  experiment  at 
colonizing. 

The  little  squadron  had  hardly  set  sail  when  the  unfit- 
ness of  the  emigrants  for  their  work  began  to  discover  it- 
self. Lying  weather-bound  within  sight  of  home,  "  some 
few,  little  better  than  atheists,  of  the  greatest  rank  among 
them,"  were  busying  themselves  with  scandalous  imputa- 
tions upon  the  chaplain,  then  lying  dangerously  ill  in  his 
berth.  All  through  the  four  months'  passage  by  way  of 
the  Canaries  and  the  West  India  Islands  discontents  and 
dissensions  prevailed.  Wingfield,  who  had  been  named 
president  of  the  colony,  had  Smith  in  irons,  and  at  the 
island  of  Nevis  had  the  gallows  set  up  for  his  execution 
on  a  charge  of  conspiracy,  when  milder  counsels  prevailed, 
and  he  was  brought  to  Virginia,  where  he  was  tried  and 
acquitted  and  his  adversary  mulcted  in  damages. 

Arrived  at  the  place  of  settlement,  the  colonists  set 
about  the  work  of  building  their  houses,  but  found  that 
their  total  number  of  one  hundred  and  five  was  made  up 
in  the  proportion  of  four  carpenters  to  forty-eight "  gentle- 
men." Not  inadequately  provisioned  for  their  work,-  they 
came  repeatedly  almost  to  perishing  through  their  sheer 
incapacity  and  unthrift,  and  their  needless  quarrels  with 
one  another  and  with  the  Indians.  In  five  months  one 
half  of  the  company  were  dead.  In  January,  1608,  eight 
months  from  the  landing,  when  the  second  expedition  ar- 
rived with  reinforcements  and  supplies,  only  thirty-eight 
were  surviving  out  of  the  one  hundred  and  five,  and  of 


40  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  v. 

these  the  strongest  were  conspiring  to  seize  the  pinnace 
and  desert  the  settlement. 

The  newcomers  were  no  better  than  the  first.  They 
were  chiefly  "  gentlemen  "  again,  and  goldsmiths,  whose 
duty  was  to  discover  and  refine  the  quantities  of  gold  that 
the  stockholders  in  the  enterprise  were  resolved  should 
be  found  in  Virginia,  whether  it  was  there  or  not.  The 
ship  took  back  on  her  return  trip  a  full  cargo  of  worth- 
less dirt. 

Reinforcements  continued  to  arrive  every  few  months, 
the  quality  of  which  it  might  be  unfair  to  judge  simply 
from  the  disgusted  complaints  of  Captain  Smith.  He 
begs  the  Company  to  send  but  thirty  honest  laborers  and 
artisans,  "  rather  than  a  thousand  such  as  we  have,"  and 
reports  the  next  ship-load  as  "  fitter  to  breed  a  riot  than 
to  found  a  colony."  The  wretched  settlement  became  an 
object  of  derision  to  the  wits  of  London,  and  of  sympa- 
thetic interest  to  serious  minds.  The  Company,  reorgan- 
ized under  a  new  charter,  was  strengthened  by  the  acces- 
sion of  some  of  the  foremost  men  in  England,  including 
four  bishops,  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  and  Sir  Francis 
Bacon.  Appeals  were  made  to  the  Christian  public  in 
behalf  of  an  enterprise  so  full  of  promise  of  the  furtherance 
of  the  gospel.  A  fleet  of  nine  ships  was  fitted  out,  carry- 
ing more  than  five  hundred  emigrants,  with  ample  sup- 
plies. Captain  Smith,  representing  what  there  was  of 
civil  authority  in  the  colony,  had  a  brief  struggle  with 
their  turbulence,  and  recognized  them  as  of  the  same  sort 
with  the  former  companies,  for  the  most  part  "  poor  gen- 
tlemen, tradesmen,  serving-men,  hbertines,  and  such  like, 
ten  times  more  fit  to  spoil  a  commonwealth  than  either 
begin  one  or  help  to  maintain  one."  When  only  part  of 
this  expedition  had  arrived,  Captain  Smith  departed  for 
England,  disabled  by  an  accidental  wound,  leaving  a  set- 


EVIL   DAYS  IN    VIRGINIA.  41 

tiement  of  nearly  five  hundred  men,  abundantly  provi- 
sioned. "  It  was  not  the  will  of  God  that  the  new  state 
should  be  formed  of  these  materials."  -^  In  six  months  the 
number  of  the  colonists  was  reduced  to  sixty,  and  when 
relief  arrived  it  was  reckoned  that  in  ten  days'  longer  delay 
they  would  have  perished  to  the  last  man.  With  one  ac- 
cord the  wretched  remnant  of  the  colony,  together  with 
the  latest  comers,  deserted,  without  a  tear  of  regret,  the 
scene  of  their  misery.  But  their  retreating  vessels  were 
met  and  turned  back  from  the  mouth  of  the  river  by  the 
approaching  ships  of  Lord  de  la  Warr  with  emigrants  and 
supplies.  Such  were  the  first  three  unhappy  and  unhon- 
ored  years  of  the  first  Christian  colony  on  the  soil  of  the 
United  States. 

One  almost  shrinks  from  being  assured  that  this  worth- 
less crew,  through  all  these  years  of  suicidal  crime  and 
folly,  had  been  assiduous  in  religious  duties.  First  under 
an  awning  made  of  an  old  sail,  seated  upon  logs,  with  a 
rail  nailed  to  two  trees  for  a  pulpit,  afterward  in  a  poor 
shanty  of  a  church,  "  that  could  neither  well  defend  wind 
nor  rain,"  they  "  had  daily  common  prayer  morning  and 
evening,  every  Sunday  two  sermons,  and  every  three 
months  the  holy  communion,  till  their  minister  died  "  ;  and 
after  that  "  prayers  daily,  with  an  homily  on  Sundays, 
two  or  three  years,  till  more  preachers  came."  The  sturdy 
and  terrible  resolution  of  Captain  Smith,  who  in  his 
marches  through  the  wilderness  was  wont  to  begin  the 
day  with  prayer  and  psalm,  and  was  not  unequal  to  the 
duty,  when  it  was  laid  on  him,  of  giving  Christian  exhor- 
tation as  well  as  righteous  punishment,  and  the  gentle 
Christian  influence  of  the  Rev.  Robert  Hunt,  were  the 
salt  that  saved  the  colony  from  utterly  perishing  of  its 
vices.     It  was  not  many  months  before  the  frail  body  of 

1  Bancroft,  vol.  i.,  p.  138. 


42  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  V. 

the  chaplain  sank  under  the  hardships  of  pioneer  life ;  he 
is  commemorated  by  his  comrade,  the  captain,  as  "  an 
honest,  religious,  and  courageous  divine,  during  whose 
life  our  factions  were  oft  qualified,  our  wants  and  greatest 
extremities  so  comforted  that  they  seemed  easy  in  com- 
parison of  what  we  endured  after  his  memorable  death." 
When,  in  1609,  in  a  nobler  spirit  than  that  of  mere  com- 
mercial enterprise,  the  reorganized  Company,  under  the 
new  charter,  was  preparing  the  great  reinforcement  of  five 
hundred  to  go  out  under  Lord  de  la  Warr  as  governor  of 
the  colony,  counsel  was  taken  with  Abbot,  the  Puritan 
Bishop  of  London,  himself  a  member  of  the  Virginia  Com- 
pany, and  Richard  Buck  was  selected  as  a  worthy  succes- 
sor to  Robert  Hunt  in  the  office  of  chaplain.  Such  he 
proved  himself.  Sailing  in  advance  of  the  governor,  in  the 
ship  with  Sir  Thomas  Gates  and  Sir  George  Somers,  and 
wrecked  with  them  off  the  Bermudas,  he  did  not  forget 
his  duty  in  the  "  plenty,  peace,  and  ease  "  of  that  paradise. 
The  ship's  bell  was  rescued  from  the  wreck  to  ring  for 
morning  and  evening  prayer,  and  for  the  two  sermons 
every  Sunday.  There  were  births  and  funerals  and  a 
marriage  in  the  shipwrecked  company,  and  at  length,  when 
their  makeshift  vessel  was  ready,  they  embarked  for  their 
desired  haven,  there  to  find  only  the  starving  threescore 
survivors  of  the  colony.  They  gathered  together,  a  piti- 
able remnant,  in  the  church,  where  Master  Buck  "  made 
a  zealous  and  sorrowful  prayer";  and  at  once,  without 
losing  a  day,  they  embarked  for  a  last  departure  from  Vir- 
ginia, but  were  met  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  by  the  tardy 
ships  of  Lord  de  la  Warr.  The  next  morning,  Sunday, 
June  10,  16 10,  Lord  de  la  Warr  landed  at  the  fort,  where 
Gates  had  drawn  up  his  forlorn  platoon  of  starving  men 
to  receive  him.  The  governor  fell  on  his  knees  in  prayer, 
then  led  the  way  to  the  church,  and,  after  service  and  a 


A   PURITAN  ADMINISTRATION.  43 

sermon  from  the  chaplain,  made  an  address,  assuming 
command  of  the  colony. 

Armed,  under  the  new  charter,  with  adequate  authority, 
the  new  governor  was  not  slow  in  putting  on  the  state  of 
a  viceroy.  Among  his  first  cares  was  to  provide  for  the 
external  dignity  of  worship.  The  church,  a  building  sixty 
feet  by  twenty-four,  built  long  enough  before  to  be  now 
in  need  of  repairs,  was  put  into  good  condition,  and  a  brave 
sight  it  was  on  Sundays  to  see  the  Governor,  with  the 
Privy  Council  and  the  Lieutenant- General  and  the  Admiral 
and  the  Vice- Admiral  and  the  Master  of  the  Horse,  together 
with  the  body-guard  of  fifty  halberdiers  in  fair  red  cloaks, 
commanded  by  Captain  Edward  Brewster,  assembled  for 
worship,  the  governor  seated  in  the  choir  in  a  green  vel- 
vet chair,  with  a  velvet  cushion  on  a  table  before  him. 
Few  things  could  have  been  better  adapted  to  convince 
the  peculiar  public  of  Jamestown  that  divine  worship  was 
indeed  a  serious  matter.  There  was  something  more  than 
the  parade  of  government  manifested  by  his  lordship  in 
the  few  months  of  his  reign;  but  the  inauguration  of 
strong  and  effective  control  over  the  lazy,  disorderly,  and 
seditious  crowd  to  be  dealt  with  at  Jamestown  was  re- 
served for  his  successor.  Sir  Thomas  Dale,  who  arrived  in 
May,  161 1,  in  company  with  the  Rev.  Alexander  Whit- 
aker,  the  "  apostle  of  Virginia." 

It  will  not  be  possible  for  any  to  understand  the  rela- 
tions of  this  colony  to  the  state  of  parties  in  England 
without  distinctly  recognizing  that  the  Puritans  were  not 
a  party  against  the  Church  of  England,  but  a  party  in  the 
Church  of  England.  The  Puritan  party  was  the  party  of 
reform,  and  was  strong  in  a  deep  fervor  of  religious  con- 
viction widely  diffused  among  people  and  clergy,  and  ex- 
tending to  the  highest  places  of  the  nobility  and  the  epis- 
copate.    The  anti- Puritan  party  was  the  conservative  or 


4J.  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  v. 

reactionary  party,  strong  in  the  vis  incrticB,  and  in  the 
king's  pig-headed  prejudices  and  his  monstrous  conceit  of 
theological  ability  and  supremacy  in  the  church;  strong 
also  in  a  considerable  adhesion  and  zealous  cooperation 
from  among  his  nominees,  the  bishops.  The.  religious 
division  was  also  a  political  one,  the  Puritans  being  known 
as  the  party  of  the  people,  their  antagonists  as  the  court 
party.  The  struggle  of  the  Puritans  (as  distinguished 
from  the  inconsiderable  number  of  the  Separatists)  was 
for  the  maintenance  of  their  rights  within  the  church ;  the 
effort  of  their  adversaries,  with  the  aid  of  the  king's  pre- 
rogative, was  to  drive  or  harry  them  out  of  the  church. 
It  is  not  to  be  understood  that  the  two  parties  were  as 
yet  organized  as  such  and  distinctly  bounded;  but  the 
two  tendencies  were  plainly  recognized,  and  the  sympa- 
thies of  leading  men  in  church  or  state  were  no  secret...^ 

The  Virginia  Company  was  a  Puritan  corporation.^  As 
such,  its  meetings  and  debates  were  the  object  of  popular 
interest  and  of  the  royal  jealousy.  Among  its  corporators 
were  the  brothers  Sandys,  sons  of  the  Puritan  Archbisho]) 
of  York,  one  of  whom  held  the  manor  of  Scrooby.  Others 
of  the  corporation  were  William  Brewster,  of  Scrooby,  and 
his  son  Edward.  In  the  fleet  of  Sir  Thomas  Gates,  May, 
1609,  were  noted  Puritans,  one  of  whom,  Stephen  Hop- 
kins, "  who  had  much  knowledge  in  the  Scriptures  and 
could  reason  well  therein,"  was  clerk  to  that  "  painful 
preacher,"  but  not  strict  conformist.  Master  Richard  Bucl:. 
The  intimate  and  sometimes  official  relations  of  the  Vi:"- 

1  See  the  interesting  demonstration  of  this  point  in  articles  by  E.  D.  Neili 
in  "  Hours  at  Home,"  vol.  vi.,  pp.  22,  201. 

Mr.  Neill's  various  publications  on  the  colonial  history  of  Virginia  an<l 
Maryland  are  of  the  highest  value  and  authority.  They  include  :  "  The  Eng- 
lish Colonization  of  America  During  the  Seventeenth  Century";  "  Histoi- 
of  the  Virginia  Company  "  ;  "  Virginia  Vetusta"  ;  "  Virginia  Carolorum  "  : 
"  Terra  Marise  ;  or,  Threads  of  Maryland  Colonial  History  "  ;  "  The  FounJ 
ers  of  Maryland";  "  Life  of  Patrick  Copland." 


PURI7\4XS   LV    ]-JRGINIA.  45 

ginia  Company  not  only  with  leading  representatives  of 
the  Puritan  party,  but  with  the  Pilgrims  of  Leyden,  whom 
they  would  gladly  have  received  into  their  own  colony, 
are  matter  of  history  and  of  record.  It  admits  of  proof 
that  there  was  a  steady  purpose  in  the  Company,  so  far  as 
it  was  not  thwarted  by  the  king  and  the  bishops  of  the 
court  party,  to  hold  their  unruly  and  ill-assorted  colony 
under  Puritan  influences  both  of  church  and  government.^ 
The  fact  throws  light  on  the  remoter  as  well  as  the  nearer 
history  of  Virginia.  Especially  it  throws  light  on  the 
memorable  administration  of  Sir  Thomas  Dale,  which  fol- 
lowed hard  upon  the  departure  of  Lord  de  la  Warr  and 
his  body-guard  in  red  cloaks. 

The  Company  had  picked  their  man  with  care — "  a  man 
of  good  conscience  and  knowledge  in  divinity,"  and  a 
soldier  and  disciplinarian  proved  in  the  wars  of  the  Low 
Countries — a  very  prototype  of  the  great  Cromwell.  He 
understood  what  manner  of  task  he  had  undertaken,  and 
executed  it  without  flinching.  As  a  matter  of  course — it 
was  the  way  in  that  colony — there  was  a  conspiracy  against 
his  authority.  There  was  no  second  conspiracy  under  him. 
Punishment  was  inflicted  on  the  ringleaders  so  swift,  so 
terrible,  as  to  paralyze  all  future  sedition.  He  put  in  force, 
in  the  name  of  the  Company,  a  code  of  '*'  Laws,  Divine, 
Moral,  and  Martial,"  to  which  no  parallel  can  be  found  in 
the  severest  legislation  of  New  England.  An  invaluable 
service  to  the  colony  was  the  abolition  of  that  demoraliz- 
ing socialism  that  had  been  enforced  on  the  colonists,  by 
which  all  their  labor  was  to  be  devoted  to  the  common 
stock.  He  gave  out  land  in  severalty,  and  the  laborer  en- 
joyed the  fruits  of  his  own  industry  and  thrift,  or  suffered 

1  It  was  customary  for  the  Company,  when  a  candidate  was  proposed  for 
a  chaplaincy  in  the  colony,  to  select  a  text  for  him  and  appoint  a  Sunday 
and  a  church  for  a  "  trial  sermon  "  from  which  they  might  judge  of  his  qual- 
ifications. 


46  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  v. 

the  consequences  of  his  laziness.     The  culture  of  tobacco 
gave  the  colony  a  currency  and  a  staple  of  export. 

With  Dale  was  associated  as  chaplain  Alexander  Whit- 
aker,  son  of  the  author  of  the  Calvinistic  Lambeth 
Articles,  and  brother  of  a  Separatist  preacher  of  London. 
What  was  his  position  in  relation  to  church  parties  is 
shown  by  his  letter  to  his  cousin,  the  "arch-Puritan," 
William  Gouge,  written  after  three  years'  residence  in 
Virginia,  urging  that  nonconformist  clergymen  should 
come  over  to  Virginia,  where  no  question  would  be  raised 
on  the  subject  of  subscription  or  the  surplice.  What  man- 
ner of  man  and  minister  he  was  is  proved  by  a  noble  rec- 
ord of  faithful  work.  He  found  a  true  workfellow  in  Dale. 
When  this  statesmanlike  and  soldierly  governor  founded 
his  new  city  of  Henrico  up  the  river,  and  laid  out  across 
the  stream  the  suburb  of  Hope-in-Faith,  defended  by  Fort 
Charity  and  Fort  Patience,  he  built  there  in  sight  from 
his  official  residence  the  parsonage  of  the  "  apostle  of  Vir- 
ginia." The  course  of  Whitaker's  ministry  is  described 
by  himself  in  a  letter  to  a  friend :  "  Every  Sabbath  day 
we  preach  in  the  forenoon  and  catechise  in  the  afternoon. 
Every  Saturday,  at  night,  I  exercise  in  Sir  Thomas  Dale's 
house."  But  he  and  his  fellow-clergymen  did  not  labor 
without  aid,  even  in  word  and  doctrine.  When  Mr.  John 
Rolfe  was  perplexed  with  questions  of  duty  touching  his 
love  for  Pocahontas,  it  was  to  the  old  soldier,  Dale,  that 
he  brought  his  burden,  seeking  spiritual  counsel.  And 
it  was  this  "  religious  and  vahant  governor,"  as  Whitaker 
calls  him,  this  "  man  of  great  knowledge  in  divinity,  and 
of  a  good  conscience  in  all  things,"  that  "  labored  long  to 
ground  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ"  in  the  Indian  maiden, 
and  wrote  concerning  her,  "  Were  it  but  for  the  gaining 
of  this  one  soul,  I  will  think  my  time,  toils,  and  present 
stay  well  spent." 


CHRISTIA.KIZIXG    THE   COLOXY.  47 

The  progress  of  the  gospel  in  reclaiming  the  unhappy 
colony  to  Christian  civilization  varies  with  the  varying 
fortunes  of  contending  parties  in  England.  Energetic 
efforts  were  made  by  the  Company  under  Sandys,  the  friend 
of  Brewster,  to  send  out  worthy  colonists ;  and  the  deli- 
cate task  of  finding  young  women  of  good  character  to 
be  shipped  as  wives  to  the  settlers  was  undertaken  con- 
scientiously and  successfully.  Generous  gifts  of  money 
and  land  were  contributed  (although  little  came  from  them) 
for  the  endowment  of  schools  and  a  college  for  the  promo- 
tion of  Christ's  work  among  the  white  people  and  the  red. 
But  the  course  of  events  on  both  sides  of  the  sea  may  be 
best  illustrated  by  a  narrative  of  personal  incidents. 

In  the  year  162 1,  an  East  India  Company's  chaplain, 
the  Rev.  Patrick  Copland,  who  perhaps  deserves  the  title 
of  the  first  English  missionary  in  India,  on  his  way  back 
from  India  met,  probably  at  the  Canaries,  with  ships  bound 
for  Virginia  with  emigrants.  Learning  from  these  some- 
thing of  the  needs  of  the  plantation,  he  stirred  up  his  fel- 
low-passengers on  the  "  Royal  James,"  and  raised  the  sum 
of  seventy  pounds,  which  was  paid  to  the  treasurer  of  the 
Virginia  Company ;  and,  being  increased  by  other  gifts  to 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds,  was,  in  consultation 
with  Mr.  Copland,  appropriated  for  a  free  school  to  be 
called  the  "  East  India  School." 

The  affairs  of  the  colony  were  most  promising.  It  was 
growing  in  population  and  in  wealth  and  in  the  institutions 
of  a  Christian  commonwealth.  The  territory  was  divided 
into  parishes  for  the  work  of  church  and  clergy.  The 
stupid  obstinacy  of  the  king,  against  the  remonstrances  of 
the  Company,  perpetrated  the  crime  of  sending  out  a  hun- 
dred convicts  into  the  young  community,  extorting  from 
Captain  Smith  the  protest  that  this  act  "  hath  laid  one  of 
the  finest  countries  of  America  under  the  just  scandal  of 


48  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  v. 

being  a  mere  hell  upon  earth."  The  sweepings  of  the 
London  and  Bristol  streets  were  exported  for  servants. 
Of  darker  portent,  though  men  perceived  it  not,  was  the 
landing  of  the  first  cargo  of  negro  slaves.  But  so  grate- 
ful was  the  Company  for  the  general  prosperity  of  the 
colony  that  it  appointed  a  thanksgiving  sermon  to  be 
preached  at  Bow  Church,  April  17,  1622,  by  Mr.  Copland, 
which  was  printed  under  the  title,  "  Virginia's  God  Be 
Thanked."  In  July,  1622,  the  Company,  proceeding  to 
the  execution  of  a  long-cherished  plan,  chose  Mr.  Cop- 
land rector  of  the  college  to  be  built  at  Henrico  from  the 
endowments  already  provided,  when  news  arrived  of  the 
massacre  which,  in  March  of  that  year,  swept  away  one 
half  of  the  four  thousand  colonists.  All  such  enterprises 
were  at  once  arrested. 

In  1624  the  long  contest  of  the  king  and  the  court  party 
against  the  Virginia  Company  was  ended  by  a  violent 
exercise  of  the  prerogative  dissolving  the  Company,  but 
not  until  it  had  established  free  representative  government 
in  the  colony.  The  revocation  of  the  charter  was  one  of 
the  last  acts  of  James's  ignoble  reign.  In  1625  he  died, 
and  Charles  I.  became  king.  In  1628  "the  most  hot- 
headed and  hard-hearted  of  prelates,"  William  Laud,  be- 
came Bishop  of  London,  and  in  1633  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury. But  the  Puritan  principles  of  duty  and  Hberty 
already  planted  in  Virginia  were  not  destined  to  be  eradi- 
cated. 

From  the  year  1619,  a  settlement  at  Nansemond,  near 
Norfolk,  had  prospered,  and  had  been  in  relations  of  trade 
with  New  England.  In  1642  Philip  Bennett,  of  Nanse- 
mond, visiting  Boston  in  his  coasting  vessel,  bore  with  him 
a  letter  to  the  Boston  church,  signed  by  seventy-four 
names,  stating  the  needs  of  their  great  county,  now  with- 
out a  pastor,  and  offering  a  maintenance  to  three  good 


THE  XAXSEMOiXD   CHURCH. 


49 


ministers  if  they  could  be  found.  A  little  later  William 
Durand,  of  the  same  county,  wrote  for  himself  and  his 
neighbors  to  John  Davenport,  of  New  Haven,  to  whom 
some  of  them  had  listened  gladly  in  London  (perhaps  it 
was  when  he  preached  the  first  annual  sermon  before  the 
Virginia  Company  in  1621),  speaking  of  !' a  revival  of 
piety  "  among  them,  and  urging  the  request  that  had  been 
sent  to  the  church  in  Boston.  As  result  of  this  corre- 
spondence, three  eminently  learned  and  faithful  ministers 
of  New  England  came  to  Virginia,  bringing  letters  of 
commendation  from  Governor  Winthrcp.  But  they  found 
that  Virginia,  now  become  a  royal  colony,  had  no  welcome 
for  them.  The  newly  arrived  royal  governor,  Sir  William 
Berkeley,  a  man  after  Laud's  own  heart,  forbade  their 
preaching;  but  the  Catholic  governor  of  Maryland  sent 
them  a  free  invitation,  and  one  of  them,  removing  to  An- 
napolis with  some  of  the  Virginia  Puritans,  so  labored  in 
the  gospel  as  to  draw  forth  the  public  thanks  of  the  legis- 
lative assembly. 

The  sequel  of  this  story  is  a  strange  one.  There  must 
have  been  somewhat  in  the  character  and  bearing  of  these 
silenced  and  banished  ministers  that  touched  the  heart  of 
Thomas  Harrison,  the  governor's  chaplain.  He  made  a 
confession  of  his  insincere  dealings  toward  them :  that 
while  he  had  been  showing  them  "  a  fair  face  "  he  had 
privately  used  his  influence  to  have  them  silenced.  He 
himself  began  to  preach  in  that  earnest  way  of  righteous- 
ness, temperance,  and  judgment,  which  is  fitted  to  make 
governors  tremble,  until  Berkeley  cast  him  out  as  a  Puri- 
tan, saying  that  he  did  not  wish  so  grave  a  chaplain ; 
whereupon  Harrison  crossed  the  river  to  Nansemond,  be- 
came pastor  of  the  church,  and  mightily  built  up  the  cause 
which  he  had  sought  to  destroy. 

A  few  months  later  the  Nansemond  people  had  the  op- 


^0  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  v. 

portunity  of  giving  succor  and  hospitality  to  a  shipwrecked 
company  of  nine  people,  who  had  been  cast  away,  with 
loss  of  all  their  goods,  in  sailing  from  the  Bermudas  to 
found  a  new  settlement  on  one  of  the  Bahamas.  Among 
the  party  was  an  aged  and  venerable  man,  that  same  Pat- 
rick Copland  who  twenty-five  years  before  had  interested 
himself  in  the  passing  party  of  emigrants.  This  was  in- 
deed entertaining  an  angel.  Mr.  Copland  had  long  been 
a  nonconformist  minister  at  the  Bermudas,  and  he  listened 
to  the  complaints  that  were  made  to  him  of  the  persecu- 
tion to  which  the  people  were  subjected  by  the  malignant 
Berkeley.  A  free  invitation  was  given  to  the  Nansemond 
church  to  go  with  their  guests  to  the  new  settlement  of 
Eleuthera,  in  which  freedom  of  conscience  and  non-inter- 
ference of  the  magistrate  with  the  church  were  secured 
by  charter.^  Mr.  Harrison  proceeded  to  Boston  to  take 
counsel  of  the  churches  over  this  proposition.  The  peo- 
ple were  advised  by  their  Boston  brethren  to  remain  in 
their  lot  until  their  case  should  become  intolerable.  Mr. 
Harrison  went  on  to  London,  where  a  number  of  things 
had  happened  since  Berkeley's  appointment.  The  king 
had  ceased  to  be;  but  an  order  from  the  Council  of  State 
was  sent  to  Berkeley,  sharply  reprimanding  him  for  his 
course,  and  directing  him  to  restore  Mr.  Harrison  to  his 
parish.  But  Mr.  Harrison  did  not  return.  He  fulfilled  an 
honorable  career  as  incumbent  of  a  London  parish,  as 
chaplain  to  Henry  Cromwell,  viceroy  of  Ireland,  and  as  a 
hunted  and  persecuted  preacher  in  the  evil  days  after  the 
Restoration.  But  the  "poetic  justice"  with  which  this 
curious  dramatic  episode  should  conclude  is  not  reached 
until  Berkeley  is  compelled  to  surrender  his  jurisdiction  to 
the  Commonwealth,  and  Richard  Bennett,  one  of  the  ban- 

1  The  project  of  Eleuthera  is  entitled  to  honorable  mention  in  the  history 
of  religious  liberty. 


GOVERNOR  BERKELEY.  5  I 

ished  Puritans  of  Nansemond,  is  chosen  by  the  Assembly 
of  Burgesses  to  be  governor  in  his  stead. ^ 

Of  course  this  is  a  brief  triumph.  With  the  restoration 
of  the  Stuarts,  Berkeley  comes  back  into  power  as  royal 
governor,  and  for  many  years  afflicts  the  colony  with  his 
malignant  Toryism.  The  last  state  is  worse  than  the  first ; 
for  during  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth  old  soldiers  of 
the  king's  army  had  come  to  Virginia  in  such  numbers  as 
to  form  an  appreciable  and  not  wholly  admirable  element 
in  the  population.  Surrounded  by  such  society,  the  gov- 
ernor was  encouraged  to  indulge  his  natural  disposition  to 
bigotry  and  tyranny.  Under  such  a  nursing  father  the 
interests  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  fared  as  might  have 
been  expected.  Rigorous  measures  were  instituted  for 
the  suppression  of  nonconformity,  Quaker  preachers  were 
severely  dealt  with,  and  clergymen,  such  as  they  were, 
were  imposed  upon  the  more  or  less  reluctant  parishes. 
But  though  the  governor  held  the  right  of  presentation, 
the  vestry  of  each  parish  asserted  and  maintained  the 
right  of  induction  or  of  refusing  to  induct.  Without  the 
consent  of  these  representatives  of  the  people  the  candi- 
date could  secure  for  himself  no  more  than  the  people 
should  from  year  to  year  consent  to  allow  him.  It  was 
the  only  protection  of  the  people  from  absolute  spiritual 
despotism.  The  power  might  be  used  to  repel  a  too  faith- 
ful pastor,  but  if  there  was  sometimes  a  temptation  to 
this,  the  occasion  was  far  more  frequent  for  putting  the 
people's  reprobation  upon  the  unfaithful  and  unfit.  The 
colony,  growing  in  wealth  and  population,  soon  became 
infested  with  a  rabble  of  worthless  and  scandalous  priests. 
In  a  report  which  has  been  often  quoted.  Governor  Ber- 

1  For  fuller  details  concerning  the  Puritan  character  of  the  Virginia  Com- 
pany and  of  the  early  ministers  of  Virginia,  see  the  articles  of  E.  D.  Neill, 
above  referred  to,  in  "  Hours  at  Home,"  vol.  vi. 


52  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  v. 

keley,  after  giving  account  of  the  material  prosperity  of 
the  colony,  sums  up,  under  date  of  167 1,  the  results  of 
his  fostering  care  over  its  spiritual  interests  in  these  words  : 
"There  are  forty-eight  parishes,  and  the  ministers  well 
paid.  The  clergy  by  my  consent  would  be  better  if  they 
would  pray  oftener  and  preach  less.  But  of  all  other  com- 
modities, so  of  this,  the  worst  are  sent  us.  But  I  thank 
God  there  are  no  free  schools  nor  printing,  and  I  hope  we 
shall  not  have,  these  hundred  years." 

The  scandal  of  the  Virginia  clergy  went  on  from  bad  to 
worse.  Whatever  could  be  done  by  the  courage  and 
earnestness  of  one  man  was  done  by  Dr.  Blair,  who  ar- 
rived in  1689  with  limited  powers  as  commissary  of  the 
Bishop  of  London,  and  for  more  than  fifty  years  struggled 
against  adverse  influences  to  recover  the  church  from  its 
degradation.  He  succeeded  in  getting  a  charter  for  Wil- 
liam and  Mary  College,  but  the  generous  endowments  of 
the  institution  were  wasted,  and  the  college  languished  in 
doing  the  work  of  a  grammar  school.  Something  was  ac- 
complished in  the  way  of  discipline,  though  the  cane  of 
Governor  Nicholson  over  the  back  of  an  insolent  priest 
was  doubtless  more  effective  than  the  commissary's  ad- 
monitions. But  discipHne,  while  it  may  do  something  to- 
ward abating  scandals,  cannot  create  life  from  the  dead; 
and  the  church  established  in  Virginia  had  hardly  more 
than  a  name  to  live.  Its  best  estate  is  described  by 
Spotswood,  the  best  of  the  royal  governors,  when,  looking 
on  the  outward  appearance,  he  reported :  "  This  govern- 
ment is  in  perfect  peace  and  tranquillity,  under  a  due 
obedience  to  the  royal  authority  and  a  gentlemanly  con- 
formity to  the  Church  of  England."  The  poor  man  was 
soon  to  find  how  uncertain  is  the  peace  and  tranquillity 
that  is  founded  on  "a  gentlemanly  conformity."  The 
most  honorable  page  in  his  record  is  the  story  of  his  effort 


THE  El'E    OE    THE  AWAKENING.  53 

for  the  education  of  Indian  children.  His  honest  attempt 
at  reformation  in  the  church  brought  him  into  colhsion 
not  only  with  the  worthless  among  the  clergy,  but  also  on 
the  one  hand  with  the  parish  vestries,  and  on  the  other 
hand  with  Commissary  Blair.  But  all  along  the  "  gentle- 
manly conformity  "  was  undisturbed.  A  parish  of  French 
Huguenots  was  early  established  in  Henrico  County,  and 
in  1 713  a  parish  of  German  exiles  on  the  Rappahannock, 
and  these  were  expressly  excepted  from  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity. Aside  from  these,  the  chief  departures  from  the 
enforced  uniformity  of  worship  throughout  the  colony  in 
the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  found  in  a 
few  meetings  of  persecuted  and  vilified  Quakers  and  Bap- 
tists. The  government  and  clergy  had  little  notion  of  the 
significance  of  a  slender  stream  of  Scotch-Irish  emigration 
which,  as  early  as  1720,  began  to  flow  into  the  valley  of 
the  Shenandoah.  So  cheap  a  defense  against  the  perils 
that  threatened  from  the  western  frontier  it  would  have 
been  folly  to  discourage  by  odious  religious  proscription. 
The  reasonable  anxiety  of  the  clergy  as  to  what  might 
come  of  this  invasion  of  a  sturdy  and  uncompromising 
Puritanism  struggled  without  permanent  success  against 
the  obvious  interest  of  the  commonwealth.  The  addition 
of  this  new  and  potent  element  to  the  Christian  population 
of  the  seaboard  colonies  was  part  of  the  unrecognized 
preparation  for  the  Great  Awakening. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE     NEIGHBOR     COLONIES     TO     VIRGINIA — MARYLAND 
AND   THE    CAROLINAS. 

The  chronological  order  would  require  us  at  this  point 
to  turn  to  the  Dutch  settlements  on  the  Hudson  River; 
but  the  close  relations  of  Virginia  with  its  neighbor  colo- 
nies of  Maryland  and  the  Carolinas  are  a  reason  for  taking 
up  the  brief  history  of  these  settlements  in  advance  of 
their  turn. 

The  occupation  of  Maryland  dates  from  the  year  1634. 
The  period  of  bold  and  half-desperate  adventure  in  mak- 
ing plantations  along  the  coast  was  past.  To  men  of 
sanguine  temper  and  sufficient  fortune  and  influence  at 
court,  it  was  now  a  matter  of  very  promising  and  not  too 
risky  speculation.  To  George  Calvert,  Lord  Baltimore, 
one  of  the  most  interesting  characters  at  the  court  of 
James  I.,  the  business  had  peculiar  fascination.  He  was 
in  both  the  New  England  Company  and  the  Virginia 
Company,  and  after  the  charter  of  the  latter  was  revoked 
he  was  one  of  the  Provisional  Council  for  the  government 
of  Virginia.  Nothing  daunted  by  the  ill  luck  of  these 
companies,  he  tried  colonizing  on  his  account  in  1620,  in 
what  was  represented  to  him  as  the  genial  soil  and  cli- 
mate of  Newfoundland.  Sending  good  money  after  bad, 
he  was  glad  to  get  out  of  this  venture  at  the  end  of  nine 
54 


LORD  BALTIMORE.  55 

years  with  a  loss  of  thirty  thousand  pounds.  In  1629  he 
sent  home  his  children,  and  with  a  lady  and  servants  and 
forty  of  his  surviving  colonists  sailed  for  Jamestown,  where 
his  reception  at  the  hands  of  the  council  and  of  his  old 
Oxford  fellow-student.  Governor  Pott,  was  not  cordial. 
He  could  hardly  have  expected  that  it  would  be.  He  was 
a  recent  convert  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  with  a 
convert's  zeal  for  proselyting,  and  he  was  of  the  court 
party.  Thus  he  was  in  antagonism  to  the  Puritan  colony 
both  in  politics  and  in  religion.  A  formidable  disturbing 
element  he  and  his  company  would  have  been  in  the  al- 
ready unquiet  community.  The  authorities  of  the  colony 
were  equal  to  the  emergency.  In  answer  to  his  lordship's 
announcement  of  his  purpose  "  to  plant  and  dwell,"  they 
gave  him  welcome  to  do  so  on  the  same  terms  with  them- 
selves, and  proceeded  to  tender  him  the  oath  of  suprem- 
acy, the  taking  of  which  was  flatly  against  his  Roman 
principles.  Baltimore  suggested  a  mitigated  form  of  the 
oath,  which  he  was  willing  to  take ;  but  the  authorities 
"  could  not  imagine  that  so  much  latitude  was  left  for 
them  to  decline  from  the  prescribed  form  " ;  and  his  lord- 
ship sailed  back  to  England,  leaving  in  Virginia,  in  token 
of  his  intention  to  return,  his  servants  and  "  his  lady,"  who, 
by  the  way,  was  not  the  lawful  wife  of  this  conscientious 
and  religious  gentleman. 

Returned  to  London,  he  at  once  set  in  motion  the 
powerful  influences  at  his  command  to  secure  a  charter 
for  a  tract  of  land  south  of  the  James  River,  and  when  this 
was  defeated  by  the  energetic  opposition  of  the  friends  of 
Virginia,  he  succeeded  in  securing  a  grant  of  land  north 
and  east  of  the  Potomac,  with  a  charter  bestowing  on  him 
and  his  heirs  "  the  most  ample  rights  and  privileges  ever 
conferred  by  a  sovereign  of  England."  ^  The  protest  of 
1  W.  H.  Browne,  "  Maryland"  (in  American  Commonwealths),  p.  18. 


56  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vi. 

Virginia  that  it  was  an  invasion  of  the  former  grant  to  that 
colony  was  unavaiHng.  The  free-handed  generosity  with 
which  the  Stuarts  were  in  the  habit  of  giving  away  what 
did  not  belong  to  them  rarely  allowed  itself  to  be  embar- 
rassed by  the  fear  of  giving  the  same  thing  twice  over  to 
different  parties. 

The  first  Lord  Baltimore  died  three  months  before  the 
charter  of  Maryland  received  the  great  seal,  but  his  son 
Cecilius  took  up  the  business  with  energy  and  great  liber- 
ality of  investment.  The  cost  of  fitting  out  the  first  emi- 
gration was  estimated  at  not  less  than  forty  thousand 
pounds.  The  company  consisted  of  "  three  hundred 
laboring  men,  well  provided  in  all  things,"  headed  by 
Leonard  and  George  Calvert,  brothers  of  the  lord  propri- 
etor, "  with  very  near  twenty  other  gentlemen  of  very 
good  fashion."  Two  earnest  Jesuit  priests  were  quietly 
added  to  the  expedition  as  it  passed  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
but  in  general  it  was  a  Protestant  emigration  under  Cath- 
olic patronage.  It  was  stipulated  in  the  charter  that  all 
liege  subjects  of  the  English  king  might  freely  transport 
themselves  and  their  families  to  Maryland,  To  discrimi- 
nate against  any  religious  body  in  England  would  have  been 
for  the  proprietor  to  limit  his  hope  of  rapid  colonization 
and  revenue  and  to  embroil  himself  with  political  enemies 
at  home.  His  own  and  his  father's  intimate  acquaintance 
with  failure  in  the  planting  of  Virginia  and  of  Newfound- 
land had  taught  him  what  not  to  do  in  such  enterprises. 
If  the  proprietor  meant  to  succeed  (and  he  did  mean  to) 
he  was  shut  up  without  alternative  to  the  policy  of  im- 
partial non-interference  with  religious  differences  among 
his  colonists,  and  the  promotion  of  mutual  forbearance 
among  sects.  Lord  Baltimore  may  not  have  been  a  pro- 
found political  philosopher  nor  a  prophet  of  the  coming 
era  of  religious  liberty,  but  he  was  an  adroit  courtier,  like 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY  IN  MARYLAND. 


57 


his  father  before  him,  and  he  was  a  man  of  practical  good 
sense  engaged  in  an  enormous  land  speculation  in  which 
his  whole  fortune  was  embarked,  and  he  was  not  in  the 
least  disposed  to  allow  his  religious  predilections  to  inter- 
fere with  business.  Nothing  would  have  brought  speedier 
ruin  to  his  enterprise  than  to  have  it  suspected,  as  his  en- 
emies were  always  ready  to  allege,  that  it  was  governed  in 
the  interest  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  Such  a  sus- 
picion he  took  the  most  effective  means  of  averting.  He 
kept  his  promises  to  his  colonists  in  this  matter  in  good 
faith,  and  had  his  reward  in  the  notable  prosperity  of  his 
colony.^ 

The  two  priests  of  the  first  Maryland  company  began 
their  work  with  characteristic  earnestness  and  diligence. 
Finding  no  immediate  access  to  the  Indians,  they  gave  the 
more  constant  attention  to  their  own  countrymen,  both 
Catholic  and  Protestant,  and  were  soon  able  to  give  thanks 
that  by  God's  blessing  on  their  labors  almost  all  the  Prot- 
estants of  that  year's  arrival  had  been  converted,  besides 
many  others.  In  1640  the  first-fruits  of  their  mission 
work  among  the  savages  were  gathered  in ;  the  chief  of 
an  Indian  village  on  the  Potomac  nearly  opposite  Mount 

1  This  seems  to  be  the  whole  e.xphmation  of  tlie  curious  paradox  that  the 
first  experiment  of  "religious  liberty  and  equality  before  the  law  among  all 
Christian  sects  should  have  been  made  apparently  under  the  auspices  of  that 
denomination  which  alone  at  the  present  day  continues  to  maintain  in  theory 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  civil  government  to  enforce  sound  doctrine  by  pains  and 
penalties.  We  would  not  grudge  the  amplest  recognition  of  Lord  Baltimore's 
faith  or  magnanimity  or  political  wisdom  ;  but  we  have  failed  to  find  evidence 
of  his  rising  above  the  plane  of  the  smart  real-estate  speculator,  willing  to  be 
all  things  to  all  men,  if  so  he  might  realize  on  his  investments.  Happily,  he 
was  clear-sighted  enough  to  perceive  that  his  own  interest  was  involved  in 
the  liberty,  contentment,  and  prosperity  of  his  colonists. 

Mr.  E.  D.  Neill,  who  has  excelled  other  writers  in  patient  and  exact  study 
of  the  original  sources  of  this  part  of  colonial  history,  characterizes  Cecilius, 
second  Lord  Baltimore,  as  "  one  whose  whole  life  was  passed  in  self-aggran- 
dizement, first  deserting  Father  White,  then  Charles  I.,  and  making  friends 
of  Puritans  and  republicans  to  secure  the  rentals  of  the  province  of  Maryland, 
and  never  contributing  a  penny  for  a  church  or  school-house"  ("English 
Colonization  of  America,"  p.  258). 


58  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vi. 

Vernon,  and  his  wife  and  child,  were  baptized  with  solemn 
pomp,  in  which  the  governor  and  secretary  of  the  colony- 
took  part. 

The  first  start  of  the  Maryland  colony  was  of  a  sort  to 
give  promise  of  feuds  and  border  strifes  with  the  neighbor 
colony  of  Virginia,  and  the  promise  was  abundantly  ful- 
filled. The  conflict  over  boundary  questions  came  to 
bloody  collisions  by  land  and  sea.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  religious  diflferences  were  at  once  drawn  into  the  dis- 
pute. The  vigorous  proselytism  of  the  Jesuit  fathers,  the 
only  Christian  ministers  in  the  colony,  under  the  patronage 
of  the  lord  proprietor  was  of  course  reported  to  London 
by  the  Virginians;  and  in  December,  1641,  the  House  of 
Commons,  then  on  the  brink  of  open  rupture  with  the 
king,  presented  a  remonstrance  to  Charles  at  Hampton 
Court,  complaining  that  he  had  permitted  "  another  state, 
molded  within  this  state,  independent  in  government, 
contrary  in  interest  and  affection,  secretly  corrupting  the 
ignorant  or  negligent  professors  of  religion,  and  clearly 
uniting  themselves  against  such."  Lord  Baltimore,  per- 
ceiving that  his  property  rights  were  coming  into  jeopardy, 
wrote  to  the  too  zealous  priests,  warning  them  that  they 
were  under  English  law  and  were  not  to  expect  from  him 
"  any  more  or  other  privileges,  exemptions,  or  immunities 
for  their  lands,  persons,  or  goods  than  is  allowed  by  his 
Majesty  or  officers  to  like  persons  in  England."  He  an- 
nulled the  grants  of  land  made  to  the  missionaries  by 
certain  Indian  chiefs,  which  they  affected  to  hold  as  the 
property  of  their  order,  and  confirmed  for  his  colony  the 
law  of  mortmain.  In  his  not  unreasonable  anxiety  for 
the  tenure  of  his  estate,  he  went  further  still ;  he  had  the 
Jesuits  removed  from  the  charge  of  the  missions,  to  be 
replaced  by  seculars,  and  only  receded  from  this  severe 
measure  when  the  Jesuit  order  acceded  to  his  terms.    The 


PURITANS  IN  MARYLAND.  59 

pious  and  venerable  Father  White  records  in  his  journal 
that  "  occasion  of  suffering  has  not  been  wanting  from  those 
from  whom  rather  it  was  proper  to  expect  aid  and  pro- 
tection, who,  too  intent  upon  their  own  affairs,  have  not 
feared  to  violate  the  immunities  of  the  church,^  But  the 
zeal  of  the  Calverts  for  religious  liberty  and  equality  was 
manifested  not  only  by  curbing  the  Jesuits,  but  by  en- 
couraging their  most  strenuous  opponents.  It  was  in  the 
year  1643,  when  the  strength  of  Puritanism  both  in  Eng- 
land and  in  New  England  was  proved,  that  the  Calverts 
made  overtures,  although  in  vain,  to  secure  an  immigration 
from  Massachusetts.  A  few  years  later  the  opportunity  oc- 
curred of  strengthening  their  own  colony  with  an  accession 
of  Puritans,  and  at  the  same  time  of  weakening  Virginia. 
The  sturdy  and  prosperous  Puritan  colony  on  the  Nanse- 
mond  River  were  driven  by  the  churlish  behavior  of  Gov- 
ernor Berkeley  to  seek  a  more  congenial  residence,  and 
were  induced  to  settle  on  the  Severn  at  a  place  which 
they  called  Providence,  but  which  was  destined,  under  the 
name  of  Annapolis,  to  become  the  capital  of  the  future 
State.  It  was  manifestly  not  merely  a  coincidence  that 
Lord  Baltimore  appointed  a  Protestant  governor,  William 
Stone,  and  commended  to  the  Maryland  Assembly,  in 
1649,  the  enacting  of  "  an  Act  concerning  Religion,"  drawn 
upon  the  lines  of  the  Ordinance  of  Toleration  adopted 
by  the  Puritan  House  of  Commons  at  the  height  of  its  au- 
thority, in  1647.2  How  potent  was  the  influence  of  this 
transplanted  Nansemond  church  is  largely  shown  in  the 
eventful  civil  history  of  the  colony.  When,  in  1655,  the 
lord  proprietor's  governor  was  so  imprudent  as  to  set  an 
armed  force  in  the  field,  under  the  colors  of  Lord  Baltimore, 

1  Browne,  pp.  54-57;  Neill,  op.  cit.,  pp.  270-274. 

2  The  act  of  Parliament  provided  full  religious  liberty  for  dissenters  from 
the  established  order,  save  only  "  so  as  nothing  be  done  by  them  to  the  dis- 
turbance of  the  peace  of  the  kingdom." 


6o  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vi. 

in  opposition  to  the  parliamentary  commissioners,  it  was 
the  planters  of  the  Severn  who  marched  under  the  flag  of 
the  commonwealth  of  England,  and  put  them  to  rout,  and 
executed  some  of  their  leaders  for  treason.  When  at  last 
articles  of  agreement  were  signed  between  the  commis- 
sioners and  Lord  Baltimore,  one  of  the  conditions  exacted 
from  his  lordship  was  a  pledge  that  he  would  never  con- 
sent to  the  repeal  of  the  Act  of  Toleration  adopted  in  1 649 
under  the  influence  of  the  Puritan  colony  and  its  pastor, 
Thomas  Harrison. 

In  the  turbulence  of  the  colony  during  and  after  the 
civil  wars  of  England,  there  becomes  more  and  more  mani- 
fest a  growing  spirit  of  fanaticism,  especially  in  the  form 
of  antipopery  crusading.  While  Jacobite  intrigues  or 
wars  with  France  were  in  progress  it  was  easy  for  dema- 
gogues to  cast  upon  the  Catholics  the  suspicion  of  dis- 
loyalty and  of  complicity  with  the  public  enemy.  The 
numerical  unimportance  of  the  Catholics  of  Maryland  was 
insufficient  to  guqrd  them  from  such  suspicions ;  for  it  had 
soon  become  obvious  that  the  colony  of  the  Catholic  lord 
was  to  be  anything  but  a  Catholic  colony.  The  Jesuit 
mission  had  languished;  the  progress  of  settlement,  and 
what  there  had  been  of  religious  life  and  teaching,  had 
brought  no  strength  to  the  Catholic  cause.  In  1676  a 
Church  of  England  minister,  John  Yeo,  writes  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  of  the  craving  lack  of  ministers, 
excepting  among  the  Catholics  and  the  Quakers,  "  not 
doubting  but  his  Grace  may  so  prevail  with  Lord  Balti- 
more that  a  maintenance  for  a  Protestant  ministry  may 
be  established."  The  Bishop  of  London,  echoing  this 
complaint,  speaks  of  the  "  total  want  of  ministers  and 
divine  worship,  except  among  those  of  the  Romish  belief, 
who,  'tis  conjectured,  does  not  amount  to  one  of  a  hundred 
of  the  people."     To  which  his  lordship  replies  that  all 


THE  MARYLAND  ESTABLISHMENT.  6 1 

sects  are  tolerated  and  protected,  but  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  induce  the  Assembly  to  consent  to  a  law  that 
shall  oblige  any  sect  to  maintain  other  ministers  than  its 
own.  The  bishop's  figures  were  doubtless  at  fault ;  but 
Lord  Baltimore  himself  writes  that  the  nonconformists 
outnumber  the  Catholics  and  those  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land together  about  three  to  one,  and  that  the  churchmen 
are  much  more  numerous  than  the  Catholics. 

After  the  Revolution  of  1688  it  is  not  strange  that  a  like 
movement  was  set  on  foot  in  Maryland.  The  "  beneficent 
despotism  "  of  the  Calverts,  notwithstanding  every  conces- 
sion on  their  part,  was  ended  for  the  time  by  the  efforts 
of  an  "  Association  for  the  Defense  of  the  Protestant  Re- 
ligion," and  Maryland  became  a  royal  colony.  Under  the 
new  regime  it  was  easier  to  inflict  annoyances  and  disa- 
bilities on  the  petty  minority  of  the  Roman  Catholics  than 
to  confer  the  privileges  of  an  established  church  on  the 
hardly  more  considerable  minority  of  Episcopalians.  The 
Church  of  England  became  in  name  the  official  church  of 
the  colony,  but  two  parties  so  remotely  unlike  as  the 
Catholics  and  the  Quakers  combined  successfully  to  de- 
feat more  serious  encroachments  on  religious  liberty.  The 
attempt  to  maintain  the  church  of  a  small  minority  by 
taxes  extorted  by  a  foreign  government  from  the  whole 
people  had  the  same  efTect  in  Maryland  as  in  Ireland:  it 
tended  to  make  both  church  and  government  odious.  The 
efforts  of  Dr.  Thomas  Bray,  commissary  of  the  Bishop  of 
London,  a  man  of  true  apostolic  fervor,  accomplished  little 
in  withstanding  the  downward  tendency  of  the  provincial 
establishment.  The  demoralized  and  undisciplined  clergy 
resisted  the  attempt  of  the  provincial  government  to  abate 
the  scandal  of  their  lives,  and  the  people  resisted  the  at- 
tempt to  introduce  a  bishop.  The  body  thus  set  before 
the  people  as  the  official  representative  of  the  religion  of 


62  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vi. 

Christ  "  was  perhaps  as  contemptible  an  ecclesiastical  or- 
ganization as  history  can  show,"  having  "  all  the  vices  of 
the  Virginian  church,  without  one  of  its  safeguards  or  re- 
deeming quaUties."  ^  The  most  hopeful  sign  in  the  morn- 
ing sky  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  to  be  found  in  the 
growth  of  the  Society  of  Friends  and  the  swelUng  of  the 
current  of  the  Scotch-Irish  immigration.  And  yet  we 
shall  have  proof  that  the  life-work  of  Commissary  Bray, 
although  he  went  back  discouraged  from  his  labors  in 
Maryland  and  although  this  colony  took  little  direct  bene- 
fit from  his  efforts  in  England,  was  destined  to  have  great 
results  in  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  in 
America;  for  he  was  the  founder  of  the  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts.  ' 

The  Carolinas,  North  and  South,  had  been  the  scene  of 
the  earliest  attempts  at  Protestant  colonization  in  America. 
The  Huguenot  enterprise  at  Beaufort,  on  Port  Royal  har- 
bor, was  planted  in  1562  under  the  auspices  of  Coligny,  and 
came  to  a  speedy  and  unhappy  end.  The  costly  and  dis- 
astrous experiment  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  was  begun  in 
1584  on  Roanoke  Island,  and  lasted  not  many  months. 
But  the  actual  occupation  of  the  region  was  late  and  slow. 
When,  after  the  Restoration,  Charles  II.  took  up  the  idea 
of  paying  his  political  debts  with  free  and  easy  cessions  of 
American  lands.  Clarendon,  Albemarle,  and  Shaftesbury 
were  among  the  first  and  luckiest  in  the  scramble.  When 
the  representatives  of  themselves  and  their  partners  ar- 
rived in  Carolina  in  1670,  bringing  with  them  that  pom- 
pous and  preposterous  anachronism,  the  "  Fundamental 
Constitutions,"  contrived  by  the  combined  wisdom  of 
Shaftesbury  and  John  Locke  to  impose  a  feudal  govern- 
ment upon  an  immense  domain  of  wilderness,  they  found 

_  ^  H.  C.  Lodge,  "  British  Colonies  in  America,"  pp.  I19-124,  with  author- 
ities cited.    The  severe  characterization  seems  to  be  sustained  by  the  evidence. 


THE    TWO    CAROLINAS.  63 

the  ground  already  occupied  with  a  scanty  and  curiously 
mixed  population,  which  had  taken  on  a  simple  form  of 
polity  and  was  growing  into  a  state.  The  region  adjoin- 
ing Virginia  was  peopled  by  Puritans  from  the  Nansemond 
country,  vexed  with  the  paltry  persecutions  of  Governor 
Berkeley,  and  later  by  fugitives  from  the  bloody  revenge 
which  he  delighted  to  inflict  on  those  who  had  been  in- 
volved in  the  righteous  rebellion  led  by  Nathaniel  Bacon. 
These  had  been  joined  by  insolvent  debtors  not  a  few. 
Adventurers  from  New  England  settled  on  the  Cape  Fear 
River  for  a  lumber  trade,  and  kept  the  various  plantations 
in  communication  with  the  rest  of  the  world  by  their 
coasting  craft  plying  to  Boston.  Dissatisfied  companies 
from  Barbadoes  seeking  a  less  torrid  climate  next  arrived. 
Thus  the  region  was  settled  in  the  first  instance  at  second 
hand  from  older  colonies.  To  these  came  settlers  direct 
from  England,  such  emigrants  as  the  proprietors  could 
persuade  to  the  undertaking,  and  such  as  were  impelled 
by  the  evil  state  of  England  in  the  last  days  of  the  Stuarts, 
or  drawn  by  the  promise  of  religious  liberty. 

South  Carolina,  on  the  other  hand,  was  settled  direct 
from  Europe,  first  by  cargoes  of  emigrants  shipped  on 
speculation  by  the  great  real-estate  "  operators  "  who  had 
at  heart  not  only  the  creation  of  a  gorgeous  aristocracy 
in  the  West,  but  also  the  realization  of  fat  dividends  on 
their  heavy  ventures.  Members  of  the  dominant  politico- 
religious  party  in  England  were  attracted  to  a  country  in 
which  they  were  still  to  be  regarded  before  the  law  as  of 
the  "only  true  and  orthodox"  church;  and  religious  dis- 
senters gladly  accepted  the  offer  of  toleration  and  freedom, 
even  without  the  assurance  of  equaUty.  One  of  the  most 
notable  contributions  to  the  new  colony  was  a  company  of 
dissenters  from  Somersetshire,  led  by  Joseph  Blake,  brother 
to   Cromwell's  illustrious  admiral.     Among  these  were 


64  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vi. 

some  of  the  earliest  American  Baptists ;  and  there  is  clear 
evidence  of  connection  between  their  arrival  and  the  com- 
ing, in  1684,  of  a  Baptist  church  from  the  Massachusetts 
Colony,  under  the  pastorate  of  William  Screven.  This 
planting  was  destined  to  have  an  important  influence  both 
on  the  religious  and  on  the  civil  history  of  the  colony. 
Very  early  there  came  two  ship-loads  of  Dutch  Calvinists 
from  New  York,  dissatisfied  with  the  domineering  of  their 
Enghsh  victors.  But  more  important  than  the  rest  was 
that  sudden  outflow  of  French  Huguenots,  representing 
not  only  religious  fidelity  and  devotion,  but  all  those  per- 
'.onal  and  social  virtues  that  most  strengthen  the  founda- 
tions of  a  state,  which  set  westward  upon  the  revocation 
of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  in  1685.  This,  with  the  later  in- 
flux of  the  Scotch-Irish,  profoundly  marked  the  character 
of  South  Carolina.  The  great  names  in  her  history  are 
generally  either  French  or  Scotch. 

It  ought  to  have  been  plain  to  the  proprietors,  in  their 
monstrous  conceit  of  political  wisdom,  that  communities 
so  constituted  should  have  been  the  last  on  which  to  im- 
pose the  uniformity  of  an  established  church.  John  Locke 
did  see  this,  but  was  overruled.  The  Church  of  England 
was  established  in  name,  but  for  long  years  had  only  this 
shadow  of  existence.  We  need  not,  however,  infer  from 
the  absence  of  organized  church  and  official  clergy  among 
the  rude  and  turbulent  pioneers  of  North  Carolina  that  the 
kingdom  of  God  was  not  among  them,  even  from  the  be- 
ginning. But  not  until  the  year  1672  do  we  find  mani- 
festation of  it  such  as  history  can  recognize.  In  that  year 
came  William  Edmundson,  "  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the 
wilderness,"  bringing  his  testimony  of  the  light  that  light- 
eth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world.  The  honest 
man,  who  had  not  thought  it  reasonable  in  the  Christians 
of  Massachusetts  to  be  offended  at  one's  sitting  in  the 


THE    QUAKERS  /.V  CAROLINA.  65 

steeple-house  with  his  hat  on,  found  it  an  evidence  that 
"  they  had  Httle  or  no  rehgion  "  when  the  rough  woodsmen 
of  CaroHna  beguiled  the  silent  moments  of  the  Friends' 
devotions  by  smoking  their  pipes  ;  and  yet  he  declares  that 
he  found  them  "a  tender  people."  Converts  were  won 
to  the  society,  and  a  quarterly  meeting  was  established. 
Within  a  few  months  followed  George  Fox,  uttering  his 
deep  convictions  in  a  voice  of  singular  persuasiveness  and 
power,  that  reached  the  hearts  of  both  high  and  low.  And 
he  too  declared  that  he  had  found  the  people  "  generally 
tender  and  open,"  and  rejoiced  to  have  made  among  them 
"a  Httle  entrance  for  truth."  The  church  of  Christ  had 
been  begun.  As  yet  there  had  been  neither  baptism  nor 
sacramental  supper ;  these  outward  and  visible  signs  were 
absent ;  but  inw^ard  and  spiritual  grace  was  there,  and  the 
thing  signified  is  greater  than  the  sign.  The  influence 
diffused  itself  like  leaven.  Within  a  decade  the  society 
was  extended  through  both  the  Carolinas  and  became  the 
principal  form  of  organized  Christianity.  It  was  reckoned 
in  1 7 10  to  include  one  seventh  of  the  population  of  North 
Carolina.^ 

The  attempt  of  a  foreign  proprietary  government  to  es- 
tablish by  law  the  church  of  an  inconsiderable  and  not 
preeminently  respectable  minority  had  little  effect  except 
to  exasperate  and  alienate  the  settlers.  Down  to  the  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century  the  official  church  in  North 
Carolina  gave  no  sign  of  life.  In  South  Carolina  almost 
twenty  years  passed  before  it  was  represented  by  a  single 
clergyman.  The  first  manifestation  of  church  life  seems  to 
have  been  in  the  meetings  on  the  banks  of  the  Cooper  and 
the  Santee,  in  which  the  French  refugees  worshiped  their 
fathers'  God  with  the  psalms  of  Marot  and  Beza. 

But  with  the  eighteenth  century  begins  a  better  era  for 

1  Tiffany,  "  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,"  p.  237. 


66  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vi. 

the  English  church  in  the  Carolinas.  The  story  of  the 
founding  and  the  work  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,  taken  in  connection  with 
its  antecedents  and  its  results,  belongs  to  this  history,  not 
only  as  showing  the  influence  of  European  Christianity 
upon  America,  but  also  as  indicating  the  reaction  of  Amer- 
ica upon  Europe. 

In  an  important  sense  the  organization  of  religious  so- 
cieties which  is  characteristic  of  modern  Christendom  is 
of  American  origin.  The  labors  of  John  Ehot  among  the 
Indians  of  New  England  stirred  so  deep  an  interest  in  the 
hearts  of  English  Christians  that  in  1649  an  ordinance  was 
passed  by  the  Long  Parliament  creating  a  corporation  to 
be  called  "  The  President  and  Society  for  the  Propagation 
of  the  Gospel  in  New  England  " ;  and  a  general  collection 
made  under  Cromwell's  direction  produced  nearly  twelve 
thousand  pounds,  from  the  income  of  which  missionaries 
were  maintained  among  some  of  the  Northern  tribes  of 
Indians.  With  the  downfall  of  the  Commonwealth  the 
corporation  became  defunct ;  but  through  the  influence  of 
the  saintly  Richard  Baxter,  whose  tender  interest  in  the 
work  of  Eliot  is  witnessed  by  a  touching  passage  in  his 
writings,  the  charter  was  revived  in  1662,  with  Robert 
Boyle  for  president  and  patron.  It  was  largely  through 
his  generosity  that  Eliot  was  enabled  to  publish  his  Indian 
Bible.  This  society,  "  The  New  England  Company,"  as  it 
is  called,  is  still  extant — the  oldest  of  Protestant  mission- 
ary societies.  1 

It  is  to  that  Dr.  Thomas  Bray  who  returned  in  1700  to 
England  from  his  thankless  and  discouraging  work  as 
commissary  in  Maryland  of  the  Bishop  of  London,  that  the 
Church  of  England  owes  a  large  debt  of  gratitude  for  hav- 

1  "  Digest  of  S.  P.  G.  Records,"  pp.  2,  3;  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica, " 
vol.  xvi.,  p.  514. 


rorxDTA'G  or  the  "  s.  p.  g."  67 

ing  taken  away  the  reproach  of  her  barrenness.  Already 
his  zeal  had  laid  the  foundations  on  which  was  reared  the 
Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian  Knowledge.  In 
1 70 1  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  attending  the  first  meeting 
of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  For- 
eign Parts,  which  for  nearly  three  quarters  of  a  century, 
sometimes  in  the  spirit  of  a  narrow  sectarianism,  but  not 
seldom  in  a  more  excellent  way,  devoted  its  main  strength 
to  missions  in  the  American  colonies.  Its  missionaries, 
men  of  a  far  different  character  from  the  miserable  incum- 
bents of  parishes  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,  were  among  the 
first  preachers  of  the  gospel  in  the  Carolinas.  Within  the 
years  1 702-40  there  served  under  the  commission  of  this 
society  in  North  Carolina  nine  missionaries,  in  South 
CaroHna  thirty- five.  ^ 

But  the  zeal  of  these  good  men  was  sorely  encumbered 
with  the  armor  of  Saul.  Too  much  favorable  legislation 
and  patronizing  from  a  foreign  proprietary  government, 
too  arrogant  a  tone  of  superiority  on  the  part  of  official 
friends,  attempts  to  enforce  conformity  by  imposing  disa- 
bilities on  other  sects — these  were  among  the  chief  occa- 
sions of  the  continual  collision  between  the  people  and 
the  colonial  governments,  which  culminated  in  the  struggle 
for  independence.  By  the  time  that  struggle  began  the 
established  church  in  the  Carolinas  was  ready  to  vanish 
away. 

1  "  Digest  of  S.  P.  G.  Records,"  pp.  849,  850. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  DUTCH  CALVINIST  COLONY  ON  THE  HUDSON  AND 

THE  SWEDISH  LUTHERAN  COLONY  ON  THE 

DELAWARE — THEY  BOTH  FALL  UNDER 

THE  SHADOW  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN. 

When  the  Englishman  Henry  Hudson,  in  the  Dutch 
East  India  Company's  ship,  the  "  Half-moon,"  in  Septem- 
ber, 1609,  sailed  up  "the  River  of  Mountains"  as  far  as 
the  site  of  Albany,  looking  for  the  northwest  passage  to 
China,  the  English  settlement  at  Jamestown  was  in  the 
third  year  of  its  half-perishing  existence.  More  than 
thirteen  years  were  yet  to  pass  before  the  Pilgrims  from 
England  by  way  of  Holland  should  make  their  landing  on 
Plymouth  Rock. 

But  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  assign  so  early  a  date  to 
the  Dutch  settlement  of  New  York,  and  still  less  to  the 
church.  There  was  a  prompt  reaching  out,  on  the  part  of 
the  immensely  enterprising  Dutch  merchants,  after  the 
lucrative  trade  in  peltries ;  there  was  a  plying  to  and  fro 
of  trading- vessels,  and  there  were  trading-posts  established 
on  Manhattan  Island  and  at  the  head  of  navigation  on  the 
Hudson,  or  North  River,  and  on  the  South  River,  or  Del- 
aware. Not  until  the  great  Dutch  West  India  Company 
had  secured  its  monopoly  of  trade  and  perfected  its  organ- 
ization, in  1623,  was  there  a  beginning  of  colonization. 
68 


A    CHURCH  AT  MANHATTAN.  69 

In  that  year  a  company  of  Walloons,  or  French-speaking 
Hollanders,  was  planted  near  Albany,  and  later  arrivals 
were  settled  on  the  Delaware,  on  Long  Island,  and  on 
Manhattan.  At  length,  in  1626,  came  Peter  Minuit  with 
an  ample  commission  from  the  all-powerful  Company,  who 
organized  something  Hke  a  system  of  civil  government 
comprehending  all  the  settlements.  Evidences  of  pros- 
perity and  growing  wealth  began  to  multiply.  But  one  is 
impressed  with  the  merely  secular  and  commercial  char- 
acter of  the  enterprise  and  wath  the  tardy  and  feeble  signs 
of  religious  life  in  the  colony.  In  1626,  when  the  settle- 
ment of  Manhattan  had  grown  to  a  village  of  thirty  houses 
and  two  hundred  souls,  there  arrived  two  official  "  sick- 
visitors,"  who  undertook  some  of  the  public  duties  of  a 
pastor.  On  Sundays,  in  the  loft  over  the  horse-mill,  they 
would  read  from  the  Scriptures  and  the  creeds.  And  two 
years  later,  in  1628,  the  village,  numbering  now  about  two 
hundred  and  seventy  souls,  gave  a  grateful  welcome  to 
Jonas  Michaelius,  minister  of  the  gospel.  He  rejoiced  to 
gather  no  less  than  fifty  communicants  at  the  first  cele- 
bration of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  to  organize  them  into  a 
church  according  to  the  Reformed  discipline.  The  two 
elders  were  the  governor  and  the  Company's  storekeeper, 
men  of  honest  report  who  had  served  in  like  functions  in 
churches  of  the  fatherland.  The  records  of  this  period  are 
scanty ;  the  very  fact  of  this  beginning  of  a  church  and 
the  presence  of  a  minister  in  the  colony  had  faded  out  of 
history  until  restored  by  the  recent  discovery  of  a  letter 
of  the  forgotten  Michaelius.^ 

The  sagacious  men  in  control  of  the  Dutch  West  India 
Company  were  quick  to  recognize  that  weakness  in  their 
enterprise  which  in  the  splendid  colonial  attempt  of  the 

1  Dr.  E.  T.  Corwin,  "History  of  the  Reformed  (Dutch)  Church  in 
America"  (in  the  American  Church  History  Series),  pp.  28-32. 


70  AMERICAX  CHRISTIAXITY.  [Chap.  vii. 

French  proved  ultimately  to  be  fatal.  Their  settlements 
were  almost  exclusively  devoted  to  the  lucrative  trade  with 
the  Indians  and  were  not  taking  root  in  the  soil.  With 
all  its  advantages,  the  Dutch  colony  could  not  compete 
with  New  England.^  To  meet  this  difficulty  an  expedient 
was  adopted  which  was  not  long  in  beginning  to  plague 
the  inventors.  A  vast  tract  of  territory,  with  feudal  rights 
and  privileges,  was  offered  to  any  man  settling  a  colony 
of  fifty  persons.  The  disputes  which  soon  arose  between 
these  powerful  vassals  and  the  sovereign  Company  had  for 
one  effect  the  recall  of  Peter  Minuit  from  his  position  of 
governor.  Never  again  was  the  unlucky  colony  to  have 
so  competent  and  worthy  a  head  as  this  discarded  elder  of 
the  church.  Nevertheless  the  scheme  was  not  altogether 
a  failure. 

In  1633  arrived  a  new  pastor,  Everard  Bogardus,  in  the 
same  ship  with  a  schoolmaster — the  first  in  the  colony — 
and  the  new  governor.  Van  Twiller.  The  governor  was 
incompetent  and  corrupt,  and  the  minister  was  faithful  and 
plain-spoken;  what  could  result  but  conflict  ?  During  Van 
Twiller's  five  years  of  mismanagement,  nevertheless,  the 
church  emerged  from  the  mill-loft  and  was  installed  in  a 
barn-like  meeting-house  of  wood.  During  the  equally 
wretched  administration  of  Kieft,  the  governor,  listening 
to  the  reproaches  of  a  guest,  who  quoted  the  example  of 
New  England,  where  the  people  were  wont  to  build  a  fine 
church  as  soon  as  they  had  houses  for  themselves,  was 
incited  to  build  a  stone  church  within  the  fort.  There 
seems  to  have  been  little  else  that  he  did  for  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  Pastor  Bogardus  is  entitled  to  the  respect  of 
later  ages  for  the  chronic  quarrel  that  he  kept  up  with  the 

1  "  The  pro^■ince,  under  the  long  years  of  Dntch  supremacy,  had  gathered 
only  some  seven  thousand  inhabitants,  against  the  hundred  and  twenty  thou- 
sand of  their  New  England  neighbors  '"  (Lodge,  "  English  Colonies, "  p.  297;. 


EARLY  DUTCH  MIiVISTERS.  7 1 

worthless  representatives  of  the  Company.  At  length  his 
righteous  rebuke  of  an  atrociously  wicked  massacre  of 
neighboring  Indians  perpetrated  by  Kieft  brought  matters 
to  a  head.  The  two  antagonists  sailed  in  the  same  ship, 
in  1647,  to  lay  their  dispute  before  the  authorities  in 
Holland,  the  Company  and  the  classis.  The  case  went  to 
a  higher  court.  The  ship  was  cast  away  and  both  the 
parties  were  drowned. 

Meanwhile  the  patroon  Van  Rensselaer,  on  his  great 
manor  near  Albany,  showed  some  sense  of  his  duty  to  the 
souls  of  the  people  whom  he  had  brought  out  into  the 
wilderness.  He  built  a  church  and  put  into  the  pastoral 
charge  over  his  subjects  one  who,  under  his  travestied 
name  of  Megapolensis,  has  obtained  a  good  report  as  a 
faithful  minister  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  was  he  who  saved 
Father  Jogues,  the  Jesuit  missionary,  from  imminent  tor- 
ture and  death  among  the  Mohawks,  and  befriended  him, 
and  saw  him  safely  off  for  Europe.  This  is  one  honorable 
instance,  out  of  not  a  few,  of  personal  respect  and  kindness 
shown  to  members  of  the  Roman  clergy  and  the  Jesuit 
society  by  men  who  held  these  organizations  in  the  sever- 
est reprobation.  To  his  Jesuit  brother  he  was  drawn  by 
a  peculiarly  strong  bond  of  fellowship,  for  the  two  were 
fellow-laborers  in  the  gospel  to  the  red  men.  For  Domine 
Megapolensis  is  claimed^  the  high  honor  of  being  the  first 
Protestant  missionary  to  the  Indians. 

In  1647,  to  the  joy  of  all  the  colonists,  arrived  a  new 
governor,  Peter  Stuyvesant,  not  too  late  to  save  from  utter 
ruin  the  colony  that  had  suffered  everything  short  of  ruin 
from  the  incompetency  and  wickedness  of  Kieft.  About 
the  time  that  immigration  into  New  England  ceased  with 

*  See  Corwin,  p.  37;  but  compare  the  claim  made  in  behalf  of  the  Puritan 
Whitaker,  "  apostle  to  the  Indians  "  thirty  years  earlier  (Tiffany,  "  Protes- 
tant Episcopal  Church,"  p.  18);  compare  also  the  work  of  the  Lutheran 
Campanius  in  New  Sweden  (Jacobs,  "  The  Lutherans,"  p.  83). 


72  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vii. 

the  triumph  of  the  Puritan  party  in  England,  there  began 
to  be  a  distinct  current  of  population  setting  toward  the 
Hudson  River  colony.  The  West  India  Company  had 
been  among  the  first  of  the  speculators  in  American  lands 
to  discover  that  a  system  of  narrow  monopoly  Is  not  the 
best  nurse  for  a  colony ;  too  late  to  save  itself  from  ulti- 
mate bankruptcy,  it  removed  some  of  the  barriers  of  trade, 
and  at  once  population  began  to  flow  in  from  other  col- 
onies, Virginia  and  New  England.  Besides  those  who 
were  attracted  by  the  great  business  advantages  of  the 
Dutch  colony,  there  came  some  from  Massachusetts,  driven 
thence  by  the  policy  of  excluslveness  in  religious  opinion 
deliberately  adopted  there.  Ordinances  were  set  forth  as- 
suring to  several  such  companies  "  liberty  of  conscience, 
according  to  the  custom  and  manner  of  Holland."  Grow- 
ing prosperously  in  numbers,  the  colony  grew  in  that 
cosmopolitan  diversity  of  sects  and  races  which  went  on 
increasing  with  its  years.  As  early  as  1644  Father  Jogues 
was  told  by  the  governor  that  there  were  persons  of 
eighteen  different  languages  at  Manhattan,  including  Cal- 
vinlsts,  CathoHcs,  English  Puritans,  Lutherans,  Anabaptists 
(here  called  Mennonlsts),  etc.  No  jealousy  seems  to  have 
arisen  over  this  multiplication  of  sects  until,  in  1652,  the 
Dutch  Lutherans,  who  had  been  attendants  at  the  Dutch 
Reformed  Church,  presented  a  respectful  petition  that  they 
might  be  permitted  to  have  their  own  pastor  and  church. 
Denied  by  Governor  Stuy  vesant,  the  request  was  presented 
to  the  Company  and  to  the  States- General.  The  two  Re- 
formed pastors  used  the  most  strenuous  endeavors  through 
the  classls  of  Amsterdam  to  defeat  the  petition,  under  the 
fear  that  the  concession  of  this  privilege  would  tend  to  the 
diminution  of  their  congregation.  This  resistance  was 
successfully  maintained  until  at  last  the  petitioners  were 
able  to  obtain  from  the  Roman  Catholic  Duke  ©f  York 


DUTCH  EXCLVSIVENESS.  73 

the  religious  freedom  which  Dutch  Calvinism  had  failed 
to  give  them. 

Started  thus  in  the  wrong  direction,  it  was  easy  for  the 
colonial  government  to  go  from  bad  to  worse.  At  a  time 
when  the  entire  force  of  Dutch  clergy  in  the  colony 
numbered  only  four,  they  were  most  unapostolically  zealous 
to  prevent  any  good  from  being  done  by  "  unauthorized 
conventicles  and  the  preaching  of  unqualified  persons," 
and  procured  the  passing  of  an  ordinance  forbidding  these 
under  penalty  of  fine  and  imprisonment.  The  mild  re- 
monstrances of  the  Company,  which  was  eager  to  get 
settlers  without  nice  inquiries  as  to  their  religious  opinions, 
had  little  effect  to  restrain  the  enterprising  orthodoxy  of 
Peter  Stuyvesant.  The  activity  of  the  Quakers  among 
the  Long  Island  towns  stirred  him  to  new  energy.  Not 
only  visiting  missionaries,  but  quiet  dwellers  at  home,  were 
subjected  to  severe  and  ignominious  punishments.  The 
persecution  was  kept  up  until  one  of  the  banished  Friends, 
John  Bowne,  reached  Amsterdam  and  laid  the  case  before 
the  Company.  This  enlightened  body  promptly  shortened 
the  days  of  tribulation  by  a  letter  to  the  superserviceable 
Stuyvesant,  conceived  in  a  most  commercial  spirit.  It 
suggested  to  him  that  it  was  doubtful  whether  further 
persecution  was  expedient,  unless  it  was  desired  to  check 
the  growth  of  population,  which  at  that  stage  of  the  enter- 
prise ought  rather  to  be  encouraged.  No  man,  they  said, 
ought  to  be  molested  so  long  as  he  disturbed  neither  his 
neighbors  nor  the  government.  "  This  maxim  has  always 
been  the  guide  of  the  magistrates  of  this  city,  and  the 
consequence  has  been  that  from  every  land  people  have 
flocked  to  this  asylum.  Tread  thus  in  their  steps,  and  we 
doubt  not  you  will  be  blessed." 

The  stewardship  of  the  interests  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
in  the  New  Netherlands  was  about  to  be  taken  away  from 


74  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  vii, 

the  Dutch  West  India  Company  and  the  classis  of  Am- 
sterdam. It  will  hardly  be  claimed  by  any  that  the  account 
of  their  stewardship  was  a  glorious  one.  The  supply  of 
ministers  of  the  gospel  had  been  tardy,  inconstant,  and 
scanty.  At  the  time  when  the  Dutch  ministers  were  most 
active  in  hindering  the  work  of  others,  there  were  only  four 
of  themselves  in  a  vast  territory  with  a  rapidly  increasing 
population.  The  clearest  sign  of  spiritual  life  in  the  first 
generation  of  the  colony  is  to  be  found  in  the  righteous 
quarrel  of  Domine  Bogardus  with  the  malignant  Kieft, 
and  the  large  Christian  brotherly  kindness,  the  laborious 
mission  work  among  the  Indians,  and  the  long-sustained 
pastoral  faithfulness  of  Domine  Megapolensis. 

Doubtless  there  is  a  record  in  heaven  of  faithful  living 
and  serving  of  many  true  disciples  among  this  people, 
whose  names  are  unknown  on  earth ;  but  in  writing  history 
it  is  only  with  earthly  memorials  that  we  have  to  do.  The 
records  of  the  Dutch  regime  present  few  indications  of 
such  religious  activity  on  the  part  of  the  colonists  as  would 
show  that  they  regarded  religion  otherwise  than  as  some- 
thing to  be  imported  from  Holland  at  the  expense  of  the 
Company. 

A  studious  and  elegant  writer,  Mr.  Douglas  Campbell, 
has  presented  in  two  ample  and  interesting  volumes  ^  the 
evidence  in  favor  of  his  thesis  that  the  characteristic  in- 
stitutions established  by  the  Puritans  in  New  England 
were  derived,  directly  or  indirectly,  not  from  England, 
but  from  Holland.  One  of  the  gravest  answers  to  an 
argument  which  contains  so  much  to  command  respect  is 
found  in  the  history  of  the  New  Netherlands.  In  the  early 
records  of  no  one  of  the  American  colonies  is  there  less 
manifestation  of  the  Puritan  characteristics  than  in  the 
records  of  the  colony  that  was  absolutely  and  exclusively 

1  "  The  Puritans  in  Holland,  England,  and  America"  (New  York,  1892). 


THE  SWEDES  IN  DELAWARE.  75 

under  Dutch  control  and  made  up  chiefly  of  Dutch  settlers. 
Nineteen  years  from  the  beginning  of  the  colony  there 
was  only  one  church  in  the  whole  extent  of  it ;  at  the  end 
of  thirty  years  there  were  only  two  churches.  After  ten 
years  of  settlement  the  first  schoolmaster  arrived ;  and 
after  thirty-six  years  a  Latin  school  was  begun,  for  want 
of  which  up  to  that  time  young  men  seeking  a  classical 
education  had  had  to  go  to  Boston  for  it.  In  no  colony 
does  there  appear  less  of  local  self-government  or  of  cen- 
tral representative  government,  less  of  civil  liberty,  or  even 
of  the  aspiration  for  it.  The  contrast  between  the  char- 
acter of  this  colony  and  the  heroic  antecedents  of  the 
Dutch  in  Holland  is  astonishing  and  inexplicable.  The 
sordid  government  of  a  trading  corporation  doubtless 
tended  to  depress  the  moral  tone  of  the  community,  but 
this  was  an  evil  common  to  many  of  the  colonies.  Or- 
dinances, frequently  renewed,  for  the  prevention  of  disorder 
and  brawling  on  Sunday  and  for  restricting  the  sale  of 
strong  drinks,  show  how  prevalent  and  obstinate  were 
these  evils.  In  1648  it  is  boldly  asserted  in  the  preamble 
to  a  new  law  that  one  fourth  of  the  houses  in  New  Am- 
sterdam were  devoted  to  the  sale  of  strong  drink.  Not  a 
hopeful  beginning  for  a  young  commonwealth. 

Before  bidding  a  willing  good-bye  to  the  Dutch  regime 
of  the  New  Netherlands,  it  remains  to  tell  the  story  of 
another  colony,  begun  under  happy  auspices,  but  so  short- 
lived that  its  rise  and  fall  are  a  mere  episode  in  the  history 
of  the  Dutch  colony. 

As  early  as  1630,  under  the  feudal  concessions  of  the 
Dutch  West  India  Company,  extensive  tracts  had  been 
taken  on  the  South  River,  or  Delaware,  and,  after  purchase 
from  the  Indians,  settled  by  a  colony  under  the  conduct 
of  the  best  of  all  the  Dutch  leaders,  De  Vries.     Quarrels 


^5  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  vii, 

with  the  Indians  arose,  and  at  the  end  of  a  twelvemonth 
the  colony  was  extinguished  in  blood.  The  land  seemed 
to  be  left  free  for  other  occupants. 

Years  before,  the  great  Gustavus  Adolphus  had  pondered 
and  decided  on  an  enterprise  of  colonization  in  America.^ 
The  exigencies  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  delayed  the  ex- 
ecution of  his  plan,  but  after  the  fatal  day  of  Liitzen  the 
project  was  resumed  by  the  fit  successor  of  Gustavus  in 
the  government  of  Sweden,  the  Chancellor  Oxenstiern. 
Peter  Minuit,  who  had  been  rejected  from  his  place  as  the 
first  governor  of  New  Amsterdam,  tendered  to  the  Swedes 
the  aid  of  his  experience  and  approved  wisdom ;  and  in 
the  end  of  the  year  1637,  against  the  protest  of  Governor 
Kieft,  the  strong  foundations  of  a  Swedish  Lutheran  colony 
were  laid  on  the  banks  of  the  Delaware.  A  new  purchase 
was  made  of  the  Indians  (who  had  as  little  scruple  as  the 
Stuart  kings  about  disposing  of  the  same  land  twice  over 
to  different  parties),  including  the  lands  from  the  mouth 
of  the  bay  to  the  falls  near  Trenton.  A  fort  was  built 
where  now  stands  the  city  of  Wilmington,  and  under  the 
protection  of  its  walls  Christian  worship  was  begun  by  the 
first  pastor,  Torkillus.  Strong  reinforcements  arrived  in 
1643,  with  the  energetic  Governor  Printz  and  that  man  of 
"  unwearied  zeal  in  always  propagating  the  love  of  God," 
the  Rev.  John  Campanius,  who  through  faith  has  obtained 
a  good  report  by  his  brief  but  most  laborious  ministry  both 
to  his  fellow-countrymen  and  to  the  Delaware  Indians. 

The  governor  fixed  his  residence  at  Tinicum,  now  almost 
included  within  the  vast  circumference  of  Philadelphia, 
and  there,  forty  years  before  the  arrival  of  William  Penn, 
Campanius  preached  the  gospel  of  peace  in  two  languages, 
to  the  red  men  and  to  the  white. 

1  The  king's  noble  conceptions  of  what  such  a  colony  ihould  be  and  ihoiild 
accomplish  are  quoted  in  Bancroft,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  284,  aej. 


THE  SWEDISH   COLONY  EXTINGUISHED.  "]"] 

The  question  of  the  Swedish  title,  raised  at  the  outset 
by  the  protest  of  the  Dutch  governor,  could  not  long  be 
postponed.  It  was  suddenly  precipitated  on  the  arrival  of 
Governor  Rising,  in  1654,  by  his  capture  of  Fort  Casimir, 
which  the  Dutch  had  built  for  the  practical  assertion  of 
their  claim.  It  seems  a  somewhat  grotesque  act  of  piety 
on  the  part  of  the  Swedes,  when,  having  celebrated  the 
festival  of  Trinity  Sunday  by  whipping  their  fellow- Chris- 
tians out  of  the  fort,  they  commemorated  the  good  work 
by  naming  it  the  Fort  of  the  .Holy  Trinity.  It  was  a  fatal 
victory.  The  next  year  came  Governor  Stuyvesant  with 
an  overpowering  force  and  demanded  and  received  the 
surrender  of  the  colony  to  the  Dutch.  Honorable  terms 
of  surrender  were  conceded ;  among  them,  against  the 
protest,  alas!  of  good  Domine  Megapolensis,  was  the 
stipulation  of  religious  liberty  for  the  Lutherans. 

It  was  the  end  of  the  Swedish  colony,  but  not  at  once 
of  the  church.  The  Swedish  community  of  some  seven 
hundred  souls,  cut  off  from  reinforcement  and  support  from 
the  fatherland,  cherished  its  language  and  traditions  and 
the  mold  of  doctrine  in  which  it  had  been  shaped ;  after 
more  than  forty  years  the  reviving  interest  of  the  mother 
church  was  manifested  by  the  sending  out  of  missionaries 
to  seek  and  succor  the  daughter  long  absent  and  neglected 
in  the  wilderness.  Two  venerable  buildings,  the  Gloria 
Dei  Church  in  the  southern  part  of  Philadelphia,  and  the 
Old  Swedes'  Church  at  Wilmington,  remain  as  monuments 
of  the  honorable  story.  The  Swedish  language  ceased  to 
be  spoken ;  the  people  became  undistinguishably  absorbed 
in  the  swiftly  multiplying  population  about  them. 

It  was  a  short-lived  triumph  in  which  the  Dutch  colony 
reduced  the  Swedish  under  its  jurisdiction.  It  only  pre- 
pared a  larger  domain  for  it  to  surrender,  in  its  turn,  to 


78  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vii. 

superior  force.  With  perfidy  worthy  of  the  House  of 
Stuart,  the  newly  restored  king  of  England,  having  granted 
to  his  brother,  the  Duke  of  York,  territory  already  plighted 
to  others  and  territory  already  occupied  by  a  friendly 
power,  stretching  in  all  from  the  Connecticut  to  the  Dela- 
ware, covered  his  designs  with  friendly  demonstrations, 
and  in  a  time  of  profound  peace  surprised  the  quiet  town 
of  New  Amsterdam  with  a  hostile  fleet  and  knd  force  and 
a  peremptory  demand  for  surrender.  The  only  hindrance 
interposed  was  a  few  hours  of  vain  and  angry  bluster  from 
Stuyvesant.  The  indifference  of  the  Dutch  republic,  which 
had  from  the  beginning  refused  its  colony  any  promise  of 
protection,  and  the  sordid  despotism  of  the  Company,  and 
the  arrogant  contempt  of  popular  rights  manifested  by  its 
governors,  seem  to  have  left  no  spark  of  patriotic  loyalty 
alive  in  the  population.  With  inert  indifference,  if  not 
even  with  satisfaction,  the  colony  transferred  its  allegiance 
to  the  British  crown,  henceforth  sovereign  from  Maine  to 
the  Carolinas,  The  rights  of  person  and  property,  reli- 
gious liberty,  and  freedom  of  trade  were  stipulated  in  the 
capitulation. 

The  British  government  was  happy  in  the  character  of 
Colonel  Nicolls,  who  came  as  commandant  of  the  invad- 
ing expedition  and  remained  as  governor.  Not  only  faith- 
ful to  the  terms  of  the  surrender,  but  considerate  of  the 
feelings  and  interests  of  the  conquered  province,  he  gave 
the  people  small  reason  to  regret  the  change  of  govern- 
ment. The  established  Dutch  church  not  only  was  not 
molested,  but  was  continued  in  full  possession  of  its  ex- 
ceptional privileges.  And  it  continued  to  languish.  At 
the  time  of  the  surrender  the  province  contained  "  three 
cities,  thirty  villages,  and  ten  thousand  inhabitants,"  ^  and 
for  all  these  there  were  six  ministers.    The  six  soon  dribbled 

1  Corwin,  p.  54. 


THE  DUTCH  CHURCH  LANGUISHES.  79 

away  to  three,  and  for  ten  years  these  three  continued 
without  reinforcement.  This  extreme  feebleness  of  the 
clergy,  the  absence  of  any  vigorous  church  life  among  the 
laity,  and  the  debilitating  notion  that  the  power  and  the 
right  to  preach  the  gospel  must  be  imported  from  Holland, 
put  the  Dutch  church  at  such  a  disadvantage  as  to  invite 
aggression.  Later  English  governors  showed  no  scruple 
in  violating  the  spirit  of  the  terms  of  surrender  and  using 
their  official  power  and  influence  to  force  the  establish- 
ment of  the  English  church  against  the  almost  unanimous 
will  of  the  people.  Property  was  unjustly  taken  and  legal 
rights  infringed  to  this  end,  but  the  end  was  not  attained. 
Colonel  Morris,  an  earnest  Anglican,  warned  his  friends 
against  the  folly  of  taking  by  force  the  salaries  of  ministers 
chosen  by  the  people  and  paying  them  over  to  "  the  min- 
isters of  the  church."  "  It  may  be  a  means  of  subsisting 
those  ministers,  but  they  won't  make  many  converts  among 
a  people  who  think  themselves  very  much  injured."  The 
pious  efforts  of  Governor  Fletcher,  the  most  zealous  of 
these  official  propagandists,  are  even  more  severely  char- 
acterized in  a  dispatch  of  his  successor,  the  Earl  of  Bello- 
mont :  "  The  late  governor,  .  .  .  under  the  notion  of  a 
Church  of  England  to  be  put  in  opposition  to  the  Dutch 
and  French  churches  established  here,  supported  a  few 
rascally  English,  who  are  a  scandal  to  their  nation  and  the 
Protestant  religion."  ^  Evidently  such  support  would  have 
for  its  main  effect  to  make  the  pretended  establishment 
odious  to  the  people.  Colonel  Morris  sharply  points  out 
the  impolicy  as  well  as  the  injustice  of  the  course  adopted, 
claiming  that  his  church  would  have  been  in  a  much  better 
position  without  this  political  aid,  and  citing  the  case  of 
the  Jerseys  and  Pennsylvania,  where  nothing  of  the  kind 
had  been  attempted,  and  where,  nevertheless,  "  there  are 

1  Corwin,  py).  105,  121. 


So  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vii. 

four  times  the  number  of  churchmen  that  there  are  in  this 
province  of  New  York;  and  they  are  so,  most  of  them, 
upon  principle,  whereas  nine  parts  in  ten  of  ours  will  add 
no  great  credit  to  whatever  church  they  are  of."  ^ 

It  need  not  be  denied  that  government  patronage,  even 
when  dispensed  by  the  dirty  hands  of  such  scurvy  nursing 
fathers  as  Fletcher  and  Lord  Cornbury,  may  give  strength 
of  a  certain  sort  to  a  religious  organization.  Whatever 
could  be  done  in  the  way  of  endowment  or  of  social  pre- 
ferment in  behalf  of  the  English  church  was  done  eagerly. 
But  happily  this  church  had  a  better  resource  than  royal 
governors  in  the  well-equipped  and  sustained,  and  gener- 
ally well-chosen,  army  of  missionaries  of  the  Society  for 
the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel.  Not  fewer  than  fifty-eight 
of  them  were  placed  by  the  society  in  this  single  province. 
And  if  among  them  there  were  those  who  seemed  to 
"preach  Christ  of  envy  and  strife,"  as  if  the  great  aim  of 
the  preacher  of  the  gospel  were  to  get  a  man  out  of  one 
Christian  sect  into  another,  there  were  others  who  showed 
a  more  Pauline  and  more  Christian  conception  of  their 
work,  taking  their  full  share  of  the  task  of  bringing  the 
knowledge  of  Christ  to  the  unevangelized,  whether  white, 
red,  or  black.^ 

The  diversity  of  organization  which  was  destined  to 
characterize  the  church  in  the  province  of  New  York  was 
increased  by  the  inflow  of  population  from  New  England. 
The  settlement  of  Long  Island  was  from  the  beginning 
Puritan  English.  The  Hudson  Valley  began  early  to  be 
occupied  by  New  Englanders  bringing  with  them  their 

1  Cor  win,  p.  105, 

2  "  Digest  of  S.  P.  G.  Records,"  pp.  57-79.  That  the  sectarian  proselyt- 
ing zeal  manifested  in  some  of  the  missionaries'  reports  made  an  unfavorable 
impression  on  the  society  is  indicated  by  the  peremptory  terms  of  a  resolution 
adopted  in  1710 :  "  That  a  stop  be  put  to  the  sending  any  more  missionaries 
among  Christians,  except  to  such  places  whose  ministers  are,  or  shall  be,  dead 
or  removed"  (^ibid.,  p.  69).     A  good  resolution,  but  not  well  kept. 


RELIGIOUS  DIVERSITIES  IN  NEW   YORK.  8 1 

pastors.  In  1696  Domine  Selyns,  the  only  Dutch  pastor 
in  New  York  City,  in  his  annual  report  congratulates  him- 
self, "Our  number  is  now  full,"  meaning  that  there  are 
four  Dutch  ministers  in  the  whole  province  of  New  York, 
and  adds :  "  In  the  country  places  here  there  are  many 
English  preachers,  mostly  from  New  England.  They 
w  ere  ordained  there,  having  been  in  a  large  measure  sup- 
j>lied  by  the  University  of  Cambridge  [Mass.]."  The 
same  letter  gives  the  names  of  the  three  eminent  French 
pastors  ministering  to  the  communities  of  Huguenot  ref- 
ugees at  New  Rochelle  and  New  York  and  elsewhere  in 
the  neighborhood.  The  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians,  more 
important  to  the  history  of  the  opening  century  than  any 
of  the  rest,  were  yet  to  enter. 

The  spectacle  of  the  ancient  Dutch  church  thus  dwin- 
dling, and  seemingly  content  to  dwindle,  to  one  of  the  least 
of  the  tribes,  is  not  a  cheerful  one,  nor  one  easy  to  under- 
stand. But  out  of  this  little  and  dilapidated  Bethlehem 
was  to  come  forth  a  leader.  Domine  Frelinghuysen,  ar- 
riving in  America  in  1 720,  was  to  begin  a  work  of  training 
for  the  ministry,  which  would  result,  in  1784,  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  first  American  professorship  of  theology  ;' 
and  by  the  fervor  of  his  preaching  he  was  to  win  the 
signal  glory  of  bringing  in  the  Great  Awakening. 

1  Corwin,  p.  207.  Undue  stress  should  not  be  laid  upon  this  formal  fact. 
The  early  New  England  colleges  were  primarily  and  mainly  theological  semi- 
naries and  training-schools  for  the  ministry.  Their  professors  were  all  theo- 
logical professors.  It  is  stated  in  D wight's  "  Life  of  Edwards  "  that  James 
i'ierpont,  of  New  Haven,  Edwards's  father-in-law,  who  died  in  1714,  lectured 
to  the  students  of  Yale  College,  as  professor  of  moral  philosophy. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE   PLANTING  OF   THE  CHURCH   IN   NEW 
ENGLAND — PILGRIM   AND    PURITAN. 

The  attitude  of  the  Church  of  England  Puritans  toward 
the  Separatists  from  that  church  was  the  attitude  of  the 
earnest,  patient,  hopeful  reformer  toiling  for  the  removal 
of  public  abuses,  toward  the  restless  "  come-outer  "  who 
quits  the  conflict  in  despair  of  succeeding,  and,  "  without 
tarrying  for  any,"  sets  up  his  little  model  of  good  order 
outside.  Such  defection  seemed  to  them  not  only  of  the 
nature  of  a  military  desertion  and  a  weakening  of  the  right 
side,  but  also  an  implied  assertion  of  superior  righteousness 
which  provoked  invidious  comparison  and  mutual  irritation 
of  feeling.  The  comparison  must  not  be  pressed  too  far 
if  we  cite  in  illustration  the  feeling  of  the  great  mass  of 
earnest,  practical  antislavery  men  in  the  American  conflict 
with  slavery  toward  the  faction  of  "  come-outer "  aboli- 
tionists, who,  despairing  of  success  within  the  church  and 
the  state,  seceded  from  both,  thenceforth  predicting  failure 
for  every  practical  enterprise  of  reform  on  the  part  of  their 
former  workfellows,  and  at  every  defeat  chuckling,  "  I  told 
you  so." 

If  we  should  compare  the  English  Separatist  of  the 
seventeenth  century  with  this  American  Separatist  of  the 
nineteenth,  we  should  be  in  still  greater  danger  of  mislead- 
82 


NATIONALIST  AND  SEPARATIST.  83 

ing.  Certainly  there  were  those  among  the  Separatists 
from  the  Church  of  England  who,  in  the  violence  of  their 
alienation  and  the  bitterness  of  their  sufferings,  did  not  re- 
frain from  sour  and  acrid  censoriousness  toward  the  men 
who  were  nearest  them  in  rehgious  conviction  and  pursuing 
like  ends  by  another  course.  One  does  not  read  far  in  the 
history  of  New  England  without  encountering  reformers 
of  this  extreme  type.  But  not  such  were  the  company  of 
true  worshipers  who,  at  peril  of  liberty  and  life,  were  wont 
to  assemble  each  Lord's  day  in  a  room  of  the  old  manor- 
house  of  Scrooby,  of  which  William  Brewster  was  lessee, 
for  Christian  fellowship  and  worship,  and  for  instruction 
in  Christian  truth  and  duty  from  the  saintly  lips  of  John 
Robinson.  The  extreme  radicals  of  their  day,  they  seem 
to  have  been  divinely  preserved  from  the  besetting  sins  of 
radicalism — its  narrowness,  its  self-righteousness,  its  cen- 
soriousness and  intolerance.  Those  who  read  the  copious 
records  of  the  early  New  England  colonization  are  again 
and  again  surprised  at  finding  that  the  impoverished  little 
company  of  Separatists  at  Leyden  and  Plymouth,  who 
were  so  sharply  reprobated  by  their  Puritan  brethren  of 
the  Church  of  England  for  their  schismatic  attitude,  their 
over-righteousness  and  exclusiveness,  do  really  excel,  in 
liberality  and  patient  tolerance  and  catholic  and  compre- 
hensive love  toward  all  good  men,  those  who  sat  in  judg- 
ment on  them.  Something  of  this  is  due  to  the  native 
nobleness  of  the  men  themselves,  of  whom  the  world  was 
not  worthy ;  something  of  it  to  their  long  discipline  in  the 
passive  virtues  under  bitter  persecution  in  their  native  land 
and  in  exile  in  Holland  and  in  the  wilderness ;  much  of  it 
certainly  to  the  incomparably  wise  and  Christ-like  teaching 
of  Robinson  both  at  Scrooby  and  at  Leyden,  and  after- 
ward through  the  tender  and  faithful  epistles  with  which 
he  followed  them  across  the  sea ;  and  all  of  it  to  the  grace 


84  AMERtCAM  CtiRISTlANITY.  t<^HAP.  viii. 

of  God  working  in  their  hearts  and  glorified  in  their  living 
and  their  dying. 

It  would  be  incompatible  with  the  limits  of  this  volume 
to  recite  in  detail  the  story  of  the  Pilgrims ;  it  has  been 
told  more  amply  and  with  fuller  repetition  than  almost  any 
other  chapter  of  human  history,  and  is  never  to  be  told  or 
heard  without  awakening  that  thrill  with  which  the  heart- 
strings respond  to  the  sufferings  and  triumphs  of  Christ's 
blessed  martyrs  and  confessors.  But,  more  dispassionately 
studied  with  reference  to  its  position  and  relations  in 
ecclesiastical  history,  it  cannot  be  understood  unless  the 
sharp  and  sometimes  exasperated  antagonism  is  kept  in 
view  that  existed  between  the  inconsiderable  faction,  as  it 
was  esteemed,  of  the  Separatists,  and  the  great  and  grow- 
ing Puritan  party  at  that  time  in  disfavor  with  king  and 
court  and  hierarchy,  but  soon  to  become  the  dominant 
party  not  only  in  the  Church  of  England,  but  in  the 
nation.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  antagonism  between 
the  two  parties  should  be  lost  sight  of.  The  two  are 
identified  in  their  theological  convictions,  in  their  spiritual 
sympathies,  and,  for  the  most  part,  in  their  judgment  on 
questions  concerning  the  externals  of  the  church ;  and 
presently  their  respective  colonies,  planted  side  by  side, 
not  without  mutual  doubts  and  suspicions,  are  to  grow  to- 
gether, leaving  no  visible  seam  of  juncture, 

Like  kindred  drops  commingling  into  one.  l 

To  the  Puritan  reformer  within  the  Church  of  England, 
the  act  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Scrooby  in  separating  themselves 
from  the  general  mass  of  English  Christians,  mingled 
though  that  mass  might  be  with  a  multitude  of  unworthy 

1  The  mutual  opposition  of  Puritan  and  Pilgrim  is  brought  out  with 
emphasis  in  "  The  Genesis  of  the  New  England  Churches,"  by  L.  Bacon, 
especially  chaps,  v.,  vii.,  xviii. 


PURITAN  AND  PILGRIM.  85 

was  nothing  less  than  the  sin  of  schism.  One  effect  of  the 
act  was  to  reflect  odium  upon  the  whole  party  of  Puritans, 
and  involve  them  in  the  suspicion  of  that  sedition  which 
was  so  unjustly,  but  with  such  fatal  success,  imputed  to  the 
Separatists.  It  was  a  hard  and  doubtful  warfare  that  the 
Puritans  were  waging  against  spiritual  wickedness  in  high 
places ;  the  defection  of  the  Separatists  doubly  weakened 
them  in  the  conflict.  It  is  not  strange,  however  it  may 
seem  so,  that  the  animosity  of  Puritan  toward  Separatist 
was  sometimes  acrimonious,  nor  that  the  public  reproaches 
hurled  at  the  unpopular  little  party  should  have  provoked 
recriminations  upon  the  assailants  as  being  involved  in  the 
defilements  and  the  plagues  of  Babylon,  and  should  have 
driven  the  Separatists  into  a  narrower  exclusiveness  of 
separation,  cutting  themselves  off  not  only  from  commu- 
nion with  abuses  and  corruptions  in  the  Church  of  England, 
but  even  from  fellowship  with  good  and  holy  men  in  the 
national  church  who  did  not  find  it  a  duty  to  secede. 

Nothing  of  this  bitterness  and  narrowness  is  found  in 
Robinson.  Strenuously  as  he  maintained  the  right  and 
duty  of  separation  from  the  Establishment,  he  was,  espe- 
cially in  his  later  years,  no  less  earnest  in  condemning  the 
"  Separatists  who  carried  their  separation  too  far  and  had 
gone  beyond  the  true  landmarks  in  matters  of  Christian 
doctrine  or  of  Christian  fellowship."  ^  His  latest  work, 
"  found  in  his  studie  after  his  decease,"  was  "A  Treatise  of 
the  Lawfulness  of  Hearing  of  the  Ministers  in  the  Church 
of  England." 

The  moderateness  of  Robinson's  position,  and  the 
brotherly  kindness  of  his  temper,  could  not  save  him  and 
his  people  from  the  prevaiHng  odium  that  rested  upon  the 
Separatist.  Many  and  grave  were  the  sorrows  through 
which  the  Pilgrim  church  had  to  pass  in  its  way  from  the 
1  L.  Bacon,  "  Genesis  of  New  England  Churches,"  p.  245. 


86  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vili. 

little  hamlet  of  Scrooby  to  the  bleak  hill  of  Plymouth.  They 
were  in  peril  from  the  persecutor  at  home  and  in  peril  in  the 
attempt  to  escape ;  in  peril  from  greedy  speculators  and 
malignant  politicians ;  in  peril  from  the  sea  and  from  cold 
and  from  starvation;  in  peril  from  the  savages  and  from 
false  brethren  privily  sent  among  them  to  spy  out  their 
Hberties ;  but  an  added  bitterness  to  all  their  tribulations 
lay  in  this,  that,  for  the  course  which  they  were  constrained 
in  conscience  to  pursue,  they  were  subject  to  the  repro- 
bation of  those  whom  they  most  highly  honored  as  their 
brethren  in  the  faith  of  Christ.  Some  of  the  most  heart- 
breaking of  their  trials  arose  directly  from  the  unwilling- 
ness of  English  Puritans  to  sustain,  or  even  countenance, 
the  Pilgrim  colony. 

In  the  year  1607,  when  the  ships  of  the  Virginia  Com- 
pany were  about  landing  their  freight  of  emigrants  and 
supplies  at  Jamestown,  the  first  and  unsuccessful  attempt 
of  the  Pilgrims  was  made  to  escape  from  their  native  land 
to  Holland.  Before  the  end  of  1608  the  greater  part  of 
them,  in  scattering  parties,  had  effected  the  passage  of  the 
North  Sea,  and  the  church  was  reunited  in  a  land  of  reli- 
gious freedom.  With  what  a  blameless,  diligent,  and  peace- 
ful life  they  adorned  the  name  of  disciple  through  all  the 
twelve  3'-ears  of  their  sojourn,  how  honored  and  beloved 
they  were  among  the  churches  and  in  the  University  of 
Leyden,  there  are  abundant  testimonies.  The  twelve  years 
of  seclusion  in  an  alien  land  among  a  people  of  strange 
language  was  not  too  long  a  discipline  of  preparation  for 
that  work  for  which  the  Head  of  the  church  had  set  them 
apart.  This  was  the  period  of  Robinson's  activity  as 
author.  In  erudite  studies,  in  grave  debate  with  gainsay- 
ers  at  home  and  with  fellow-exiles  in  Holland,  he  was 
maturing  in  his  own  mind,  and  in  the  minds  of  the  church, 
those  large  and  liberal  yet  definite  views  of  church  organ- 


STATE  BY  SOCIAL    COMPACT.  87 

ization  and  duty  which  were  destined  for  coming  ages  so 
profoundly  to  influence  the  American  church  in  all  its 
orders  and  divisions.  "  He  became  a  reformer  of  the 
Separation."  ^ 

We  pass  by  the  heroic  and  pathetic  story  of  the  consul- 
tations and  correspondences,  the  negotiations  and  disap- 
pointments, the  embarkation  and  voyage,  and  come  to  that 
memorable  date,  November  11  (=  21),  1620,  when,  arrived 
off  the  shore  of  Cape  Cod,  the  little  company,  without 
charter  or  warrant  of  any  kind  from  any  government  on 
earth,  about  to  land  on  a  savage  continent  in  quest  of  a 
home,  gathered  in  the  cabin  of  the  "  Mayflower,"  and  after 
a  method  quite  in  analogy  with  that  in  which,  sixteen  years 
before,  they  had  constituted  the  church  at  Scrooby,  entered 
into  formal  and  solemn  compact  "  in  the  presence  of  God 
and  one  of  another,  covenanting  and  combining  themselves 
together  into  a  civil  body  politic." 

It  is  difficult,  in  reading  the  instrument  then  subscribed, 
to  avoid  the  conviction  that  the  theory  of  the  origin  of  the 
powers  of  civil  government  in  a  social  compact,  which  had 
long  floated  in  literature  before  it  came  to  be  distinctly 
articulated  in  the  "  Contrat  Social  "  of  Jean  Jacques  Rous- 
seau, was  familiar  to  the  minds  of  those  by  whom  the 
paper  was  drawn.  Thoughtful  men  at  the  present  day 
universally  recognize  the  fallacy  of  this  plausible  hypothesis, 
which  once  had  such  wide  currency  and  so  serious  an  in- 
fluence on  the  course  of  political  history  in  America.  But 
whether  or  not  they  were  affected  by  the  theory,  the  prac- 
tical good  sense  of  the  men  and  their  deference  to  the 
teachings  of  the  Bible  secured  them  from  the  vicious  and 
absurd  consequences  deducible  from  it.  Not  all  the  names 
of  the  colonists  were  subscribed  to  the  compact, — a  clear 
indication  of  the  freedom  of  individual  judgment  in  that 

1  li.  Bacon,  "  Genesis,"  p.  245. 


88  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  viii. 

company, — but  it  was  never  for  a  moment  held  that  the 
dissentients  were  any  the  less  bound  by  it.  When  worth- 
less John  Billington,  who  had  somehow  got  "  shuffled  into 
their  company,"  was  sentenced  for  disrespect  and  disobe- 
dience, to  Captain  Myles  Standish  "  to  have  his  neck  and 
heels  tied  together,"  it  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to 
him  to  plead  that  he  had  never  entered  into  the  social  com- 
pact ;  nor  yet  when  the  same  wretched  man,  ten  years  later, 
was  by  a  jury  convicted  of  willful  murder,  and  sentenced 
to  death  and  executed.  Logically,  under  the  social-com- 
pact theory,  it  would  have  been  competent  for  those  dis- 
senting from  this  compact  to  enter  into  another,  and  set  up 
a  competing  civil  government  on  the  same  ground ;  but 
what  would  have  been  the  practical  value  of  this  line  of 
argument  might  have  been  learned  from  Mr.  Thomas 
Morton,  of  Furnivall's  Inn,  after  he  had  been  haled  out 
of  his  disorderly  house  at  Merry  Mount  by  Captain  Stand- 
ish, and  convented  before  the  authorities  at  Plymouth. 

The  social- compact  theory  as  applied  to  the  church, 
implying  that  the  mutual  duties  of  Christian  disciples 
in  society  are  derived  solely  from  mutual  stipulations,  is 
quite  as  transparently  fallacious  as  when  it  is  applied  to 
civil  polity,  and  the  consequences  deducible  from  it  are  not 
less  absurd.  But  it  cannot  be  claimed  for  the  Plymouth 
men,  and  still  less  for  their  spiritual  successors,  that  they 
have  wholly  escaped  the  evil  consequences  of  their  theory 
in  its  practical  applications.  The  notion  that  a  church  of 
Christ  is  a  club,  having  no  authority  or  limitations  but  what 
it  derives  from  club  rules  agreed  on  among  the  members, 
would  have  been  scouted  by  the  Pilgrims;  among  those 
who  now  claim  to  sit  in  their  seats  there  are  some  who 
would  hesitate  to  admit  it,  and  many  who  would  frankly 
avow  it  with  all  its  mischievous  implications.  Planted  in 
the  soil  of  Plymouth,  it  spread  at  once  through  New  Eng- 


THE  PILGRIM  CHURCH,  89 

land,  and  has  become  widely  rooted  in  distant  and  diverse 
regions  of  the  American  church.^    > 

The  church  of  Plymouth,  though  deprived  of  its  pastor, 
continued  to  be  rich  in  faith  and  in  all  spiritual  gifts,  and 
most  of  all  in  the  excellent  gift  of  charity.  The  history  of 
it  year  after  year  is  a  beautiful  illustration  of  brotherly 
kindness  and  mutual  self-sacrifice  among  themselves  and 
of  forgiving  patience  toward  enemies.  But  the  colony,  be- 
ginning in  extreme  feebleness  and  penury,  never  became 
either  strong  or  rich.  One  hundred  and  two  souls  em- 
barked in  the  "  Mayflower,"  of  whom  nearly  one  half  were 
dead  before  the  end  of  four  months.  At  the  end  of  four 
years  the  number  had  increased  to  one  hundred  and 
eighty.  At  the  end  of  ten  years  the  settlement  numbered 
three  hundred  persons. 

It  could  not  have  been  with  joy  wholly  unalloyed  with 
misgivings  that  this  feeble  folk  learned  of  a  powerful  move- 
ment for  planting  a  Puritan  colony  close  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. The  movement  had  begun  in  the  heart  of  the 
national  church,  and  represented  everything  that  was  best 
in  that  institution.  The  Rev.  John  White,  rector  of  Dor- 
chester, followed  across  the  sea  with  pastoral  solicitude  the 
young  men  of  his  parish,  who,  in  the  business  of  the  fish- 
eries, were  wont  to  make  long  stay  on  the  New  England 
coast,  far  from  home  and  church.  His  thought  was  to 
establish  a  settlement  that  should  be  a  sort  of  depot  of  sup- 
plies for  the  fishing  fleets,  and  a  temporary  home  attended 
with  the  comforts  and  safeguards  of  Christian  influence. 
The  project  was  a  costly  failure ;  but  it  was  like  the  corn 
of  wheat  falling  into  the  ground  to  die,  and  bringing  forth 
much  fruit.     A  gentleman  of  energy  and  dignity,  John 

1  The  writer  takes  leave  to  refer  to  two  essays  of  his  own,  in  "  Irenics 
and  Polemics  "  (New  York,  Christian  Literature  Co.,  1895),  for  a  fuller  state- 
ment of  this  point. 


90  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vm. 

Endicott,  pledged  his  personal  service  as  leader  of  a  new 
colony.  In  September,  1628,  he  landed  with  a  pioneering 
party  at  Naumkeag,  and  having  happily  composed  some 
differences  that  arose  with  the  earlier  comers,  they  named 
the  place  Salem,  which  is,  by  interpretation,  "  Peace." 
Already,  with  the  newcomers  and  the  old,  the  well-pro- 
vided settlement  numbered  more  than  fifty  persons,  busy 
in  preparation  for  further  arrivals.  Meanwhile  vigorous 
work  was  doing  in  England.  The  organization  to  sustain 
the  colony  represented  adequate  capital  and  the  highest 
quality  of  character  and  influence.  A  royal  charter, 
drawn  with  sagacious  care  to  secure  every  privilege  the 
Puritan  Company  desired,  was  secured  from  the  fatuity  of 
the  reigning  Stuart,  erecting  in  the  wilderness  such  a  free 
commonwealth  as  his  poor  little  soul  abhorred ;  and  prep- 
aration was  made  for  sending  out,  in  the  spring  of  1629, 
a  noble  fleet  of  six  vessels,  carrying  three  hundred  men  and 
a  hundred  women  and  children,  with  ample  equipment  of 
provisions,  tools  and  arms,  and  live  stock.  The  Company 
had  taken  care  that  there  should  be  "  plentiful  provision 
of  godly  ministers."  Three  approved  clergymen  of  the 
Church  of  England — Higginson,  Skelton,  and  Bright — 
had  been  chosen  by  the  Company  to  attend  the  expedition, 
besides  whom  one  Ralph  Smith,  a  Separatist  minister,  had 
been  permitted  to  take  passage  before  the  Company  "  un- 
derstood of  his  difference  in  judgment  in  some  things  " 
from  the  other  ministers.  He  was  permitted  to  continue 
his  journey,  yet  not  without  a  caution  to  the  governor  that 
unless  he  were  found  "  conformable  to  the  government " 
he  was  not  to  be  suffered  to  remain  within  the  limits  of  its 
jurisdiction.  An  incident  of  this  departure  rests  on  the 
sole  authority  of  Cotton  Mather,  and  is  best  told  in  his  own 
words : 

"  When  they  came  to  the  Land's  End,  Mr.  Higginson, 


ENGLISH  CHURCHMEN  AT  SALEM. 


91 


calling  up  his  children  and  other  passengers  unto  the  stern 
of  the  ship  to  take  their  last  sight  of  England,  said,  '  We 
will  not  say,  as  the  Separatists  were  wont  to  say  at  their 
leaving  of  England,  Farewell,  Babylon!  farewell,  Rome! 
but  we  will  say,  Farewell,  dear  England!  farewell,  the 
church  of  God  in  England,  and  all  the  Christian  friends 
there !  We  do  not  go  to  New  England  as  Separatists  from 
the  Church  of  England,  though  we  cannot  but  separate 
from  the  corruptions  in  it ;  but  we  go  to  practice  the  posi- 
tive part  of  church  reformation  and  propagate  the  gospel 
in  America.'  " 

The  story  ought  to  be  true,  for  the  intrinsic  likeliness 
of  it ;  and  it  is  all  the  likelier  for  the  fact  that  among  the 
passengers,  kindly  and  even  fraternally  treated,  and  yet  the 
object  of  grave  misgivings,  was  the  honest  Separatist  min- 
ister, Ralph  Smith. ^  The  ideal  of  the  new  colony  could 
hardly  have  been  better  expressed  than  in  these  possibly 
apocryphal  words  ascribed  to  Mr.  Higginson.  These  were 
not  fugitives  seeking  asylum  from  persecution.  Still  less 
were  they  planning  an  asylum  for  others.  They  were  in- 
tent on  the  planting  of  a  new  commonwealth,  in  which  the 
church  of  Christ,  not  according  to  the  imperfect  and  per- 
verted pattern  of  the  English  Establishment,  but  accord- 
ing to  a  fairer  pattern,  that  had  been  showed  them  in  their 
mounts  of  vision,  should  be  both  free  and  dominant.  If  this 
purpose  of  theirs  was  wrong ;  if  they  had  no  right  to  deny 
themselves  the  comforts  and  delights  of  their  native  land, 
and  at  vast  cost  of  treasure  to  seclude  themselves  within 
a  defined  tract  of  wilderness,  for  the  accomplishment  of  an 
enterprise  which  they  concoived  to  be  of  the  highest  benef- 
icence to  mankind — then  doubtless  many  of  the  measures 
which  they  took  in  pursuance  of  this  purpose  must  fall 
under  the  same  condemnation  with  the  purpose  itself.     If 

1  X..  Bacon,  "  Genesis,"  p.  467. 


92  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  viii. 

there  are  minds  so  constituted  as  to  perceive  no  moral 
difference  between  banishing  a  man  from  his  native  home, 
for  opinion's  sake,  and  declining,  on  account  of  difference 
of  opinion,  to  admit  a  man  to  partnership  in  a  difficult  and 
hazardous  enterprise  organized  on  a  distinctly  exclusive 
basis,  such  minds  will  be  constrained  to  condemn  the  Puri- 
tan colonists  from  the  start  and  all  along.  Minds  other- 
wise constituted  will  be  able  to  discriminate  between  the 
righteous  following  of  a  justifiable  policy  and  the  lapses  of 
the  colonial  governments  from  high  and  Christian  motives 
and  righteous  courses.  Whether  the  policy  of  rigorous  ex- 
clusiveness,  building  up  communities  of  picked  material, 
homogeneous  in  race,  language,  and  rehgion,  is  on  the 
whole  less  wise  for  the  founders  of  a  new  commonwealth 
than  a  sweepingly  comprehensive  policy,  gathering  in  peo- 
ple mutually  alien  in  speech  and  creed  and  habits,  is  a 
fairly  open  question  for  historical  students.  Much  light 
might  be  thrown  upon  it  by  the  comparative  history  of 
Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island,  of  New  England  and 
Pennsylvania.  It  is  not  a  question  that  is  answered  at 
once  by  the  mere  statement  of  it. 

We  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  to  the  little  Separatist 
settlement  at  Plymouth,  still  in  the  first  decade  of  its 
feeble  existence,  the  founding,  within  a  day's  journey,  of 
this  powerful  colony,  on  ecclesiastical  principles  distinctly 
antagonistic  to  their  own,  was  a  momentous,  even  a  for- 
midable fact.  Critical,  nay,  vital  questions  emerged  at 
once,  which  the  subtlest  churchcraft  might  have  despaired 
of  answering.  They  were  answered,  solved,  harmonized, 
by  the  spirit  of  Christian  love. 

That  great  spiritual  teacher,  John  Robinson,  besides  his 
more  general  exhortations  to  brotherly  kindness  and  char- 
ity, had  spoken,  in  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  some  promises 
and  assurances  which  came  now  to  a  divine  fulfillment. 


FELLOWSHIP  IN   THE    WILDERNESS.  93 

Pondering  "  sundry  weighty  and  solid  reasons  "  in  favor 
of  removal  from  Holland,  the  pilgrims  put  on  record  that 
"  their  pastor  would  often  say  that  many  of  those  who  both 
wrote  and  preached  against  them  would  practice  as  they 
did  if  they  were  in  a  place  where  they  might  have  liberty 
and  live  conformably."  One  of  the  most  affectionate  of 
his  disciples,  Edward  Winslow,  wrote  down  some  of  the 
precious  and  memorable  words  which  the  pastor,  who  v/as 
to  see  their  face  no  more,  uttered  through  his  tears  as  they 
were  about  to  leave  him.  "  '  There  will  be  no  difference,' 
he  said,  '  between  the  unconformable  ministers  and  you, 
w^hen  they  come  to  the  practice  of  the  ordinances  out  of  the 
kingdom.'  And  so  he  advised  us  to  close  with  the  godly 
party  of  the  kingdom  of  England,  and  rather  to  study 
union  than  division,  viz.,  how  near  we  might  possibly  with- 
out sin  close  with  them,  rather  than  in  the  least  measure 
to  affect  division  or  separation  from  them." 

The  solitude  of  the  little  starving  hamlet  by  the  sea  was 
favorable  to  the  springing  and  fructifying  of  this  seed  in  the 
good  and  honest  hearts  into  which  it  had  been  cast.  Be- 
fore the  great  fleet  of  colonists,  with  its  three  unconform- 
able Church  of  England  clergymen,  had  reached  the  port 
of  Salem  the  good  seed  had  been  planted  anew  in  other 
hearts  not  less  honest  and  good.  It  fell  on  this  wise. 
The  pioneer  party  at  Salem  who  came  with  Endicott, 
"  arriving  there  in  an  uncultivated  desert,  many  of  them, 
for  want  of  wholesome  diet  and  convenient  lodgings,  were 
seized  with  the  scurvy  and  other  distempers,  which  short- 
ened many  of  their  days,  and  prevented  many  of  the  rest 
from  performing  any  great  matter  of  labor  that  year  for 
advancing  the  work  of  the  plantation."  Whereupon  the 
governor,  hearing  that  at  Plymouth  lived  a  physician  "  that 
had  some  skill  that  way,"  wrote  thither  for  help,  and  at 
once  the  beloved  physician  and  deacon  of  the  Plymouth 


94  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vin. 

church,  Dr.  Samuel  Fuller,  hastened  to  their  relief.  On 
what  themes  the  discourse  revolved  between  the  Puritan 
governor  just  from  England  and  the  Separatist  deacon 
already  for  so  many  years  an  exile,  and  whither  it  tended, 
is  manifested  in  a  letter  written  soon  after  by  Governor 
Endicott,  of  Salem,  to  Governor  Bradford,  of  Plymouth, 
under  date  May  ii  (=  2i),  1629.  The  letter  marks  an 
epoch  in  the  history  of  American  Christianity : 

"  To  the  worshipful  and  my  right  worthy  friend,  William 
Bradford,  Esq.,'  Governor  of  New  Plymouth,  these  : 

"  Right  worthy  Sni :  It  is  a  thing  not  usual  that  ser- 
vants to  one  Master  and  of  the  same  household  should  be 
strangers.  I  assure  you  I  desire  it  not ;  nay,  to  speak 
more  plainly,  I  cannot  be  so  to  you.  God's  people  are 
marked  with  one  and  the  same  mark,  and  sealed  with  one 
and  the  same  seal,  and  have,  for  the  main,  one  and  the 
same  heart,  guided  by  one  and  the  same  Spirit  of  truth ; 
and  where  this  is  there  can  be  no  discord — nay,  here  must 
needs  be  sweet  harmony.  The  same  request  with  you  I 
make  unto  the  Lord,  that  we  may  as  Christian  brethren 
be  united  by  a  heavenly  and  unfeigned  love,  bending  all 
our  hearts  and  forces  in  furthering  a  work  beyond  our 
strength,  with  reverence  and  fear  fastening  our  eyes  always 
on  him  that  only  is  able  to  direct  and  prosper  all  our  ways. 

"  I  acknowledge  myself  much  bound  to  you  for  your 
kind  love  and  care  in  sending  Mr.  Fuller  among  us,  and 
I  rejoice  much  that  I  am  by  him  satisfied  touching  your 
judgments  of  the  outward  form  of  God's  worship.^  It  is, 
as  far  as  I  can  yet  gather,  no  other  than  is  warranted  by 
the  evidence  of  truth,  and  the  same  which  I  have  professed 
and  maintained  ever  since  the  Lord  in  mercy  revealed  him- 

^  The  phrase  is  used  in  a  large  sense,  as  comprehending  the  whole  subject 
of  the  nature  and  organization  of  the  visible  church  (L.  Bacon,  "  Genesis," 
p.  456,  note). 


THE    QUESTION  OE  ORDINATION.  95 

self  to  me,  being  very  far  different  from  the  common  report 
that  hath  been  spread  of  you  touching  that  particular.  But 
God's  children  must  not  look  for  less  here  below,  and  it 
is  the  great  mercy  of  God  that  he  strengthens  them  to  go 
through  with  it. 

"  I  shall  not  need  at  this  time  to  be  tedious  unto  you, 
for,  God  willing,  I  purpose  to  see  your  face  shortly.  In 
the  meantime  I  humbly  take  my  leave  of  you,  committing 
you  to  the  Lord's  blessed  protection,  and  rest 

"  Your  assured  loving  friend  and  servant, 

"John  Endicott." 

"The  positive  part  of  church  reformation,"  which  Hig- 
ginson  and  his  companions  had  come  into  the  wilderness 
to  practice,  appeared  in  a  new  light  when  studied  under 
the  new  conditions.  The  question  of  separation  from  the 
general  fellowship  of  English  Christians,  which  had  lain 
heavily  on  their  consciences,  was  no  longer  a  question; 
instead  of  it  arose  the  question  of  separation  from  their 
beloved  and  honored  fellow-Christians  at  Plymouth.  The 
Act  of  Uniformity  and  the  tyrannous  processes  by  which 
it  was  enforced  no  longer  existed  for  them.  They  were 
free  to  build  the  house  of  God  simply  according  to  the 
teaching  of  the  divine  Word.  What  form  will  the  structure 
take  ? 

One  of  the  first  practical  questions  to  emerge  was  the 
question  by  what  authority  their  ministry  was  to  be  exer- 
cised. On  one  point  they  seem  to  have  been  quite  clear. 
The  episcopal  ordination,  which  each  of  them  had  received 
in  England,  whatever  validity  it  may  have  had  in  English 
law,  gave  them  no  authority  in  the  church  of  God  in  Salem, 
Further,  their  appointment  from  the  Company  in  London, 
although  it  was  a  regular  commission  from  the  constituted 
civil  government  of  the  colony,  could  confer  no  office  in 


96  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vni. 

the  spiritual  house.  A  day  of  solemn  fasting  was  held, 
by  the  governor's  appointment,  for  the  choice  of  pastor  and 
teacher,  and  after  prayer  the  two  recognized  candidates  for 
the  two  offices,  Skelton  and  Higginson,  were  called  upon 
to  give  their  views  as  to  a  divine  call  to  the  ministry. 
"  They  acknowledged  there  was  a  twofold  calling :  the  one, 
an  inward  calling,  when  the  Lord  moved  the  heart  of  a 
man  to  take  that  calling  upon  him,  and  fitted  him  with 
gifts  for  the  same;  the  second  (the  outward  calhng)  was 
from  the  people,  when  a  company  of  believers  are  joined 
together  in  covenant  to  walk  together  in  all  the  ways  of 
God."  Thereupon  the  assembly  proceeded  to  a  written 
ballot,  and  its  choice  fell  upon  Mr.  Skelton  and  Mr.  Hig- 
ginson. It  remained  for  the  ministers  elect  to  be  solemnly 
inducted  into  office,  which  was  done  with  prayer  and  the 
laying  on  of  hands  in  benediction. 

But  presently  there  were  searchings  of  heart  over  the 
anterior  question  as  to  the  constituency  of  the  church. 
Were  all  the  population  of  Salem  to  be  reckoned  as  of  the 
church  of  Salem  ?  and  if  not,  who  should  "  discern  between 
the  righteous  and  the  wicked"?  The  result  of  study  of 
this  question,  in  the  light  of  the  New  Testament,  was  this 
— that  it  was  "  necessary  for  those  who  intended  to  be  of 
the  church  solemnly  to  enter  into  a  covenant  engagement 
one  with  another,  in  the  presence  of  God,  to  walk  together 
before  him  according  to  his  Word."  Thirty  persons  were 
chosen  to  be  the  first  members  of  the  church,  who  in  a  set 
form  of  words  made  public  vows  of  faithfulness  to  each 
other  and  to  Christ.  By  the  church  thus  constituted  the 
pastor  and  teacher,  already  installed  in  office  in  the  parish, 
were  instituted  as  ministers  of  the  church,^ 

Before  the  solemnities  of  that  notable  day  were  con- 
cluded, a  belated  vessel  that  had  been  eagerly  awaited 

1  L.  Bacon,  "  Genesis,"  p.  475. 


DISSENSIONS.  97 

landed  on  the  beach  at  Salem  the  "  messengers  of  the 
church  at  Plymouth."  They  came  into  the  assembly, 
Governor  Bradford  at  the  head,  and  in  the  name  of  the 
Pilgrim  church  declared  their  "  approbation  and  concur- 
rence," and  greeted  the  new  church,  the  first-born  in 
America,  with  "  the  right  hand  of  fellowship."  A  thought- 
ful and  devoted  student  declares  this  day's  proceedings  to 
be  "  the  beginning  of  a  distinctively  American  church  his- 
tory." 1 

The  immediate  sequel  of  this  transaction  is  characteris- 
tic and  instructive.  Two  brothers,  John  and  Samuel 
Browne,  members  of  the  council  of  the  colony,  took  grave 
offense  at  this  departure  from  the  ways  of  the  Church  of 
England,  and,  joining  to  themselves  others  like-minded, 
set  up  separate  worship  according  to  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer.  Being  called  to  account  before  the  governor  for 
their  schismatic  procedure,  they  took  an  aggressive  tone 
and  declared  that  the  ministers  "  were  Separatists,  and 
would  be  Anabaptists."  The  two  brothers  were  illogical. 
The  ministers  had  not  departed  from  the  Nationalist  and 
anti-Separatist  principles  enunciated  by  Higginson  from 
the  quarter-deck  of  the  "Talbot."  What  they  had  just 
done  was  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  national  church  for 
the  commonwealth  that  was  in  building.  And  the  two 
brothers,  trying  to  draw  off  a  part  of  the  people  into  their 
schism-shop,  were  Separatists,  although  they  were  doubt- 
less surprised  to  discover  it.  There  was  not  the  slightest 
hesitation  on  the  governor's  part  as  to  the  proper  course 
to  be  pursued.  "  Finding  those  two  brothers  to  be  of 
high  spirits,  and  their  speeches  and  practices  tending  to 
mutiny  and  faction,  the  governor  told  them  that  New 
England  was  no  place  for  such  as  they,  and  therefore  he 
sent  them  both  back  for  England  at  the  return  of  the  ships 
1  L.  Bacon,  "  Genesis,"  p.  477. 


9$  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vin. 

the  same  year."  ^  Neither  then  nor  afterward  was  there 
any  trace  of  doubt  in  the  minds  of  the  New  England  set- 
tlers, in  going  three  thousand  miles  away  into  the  seclu- 
sion of  the  wilderness,  of  their  indefeasible  moral  right  to 
pick  their  own  company.  There  was  abundant  opportu- 
nity for  mistake  and  temptation  to  wrong-doing  in  the 
exercise  of  this  right,  but  the  right  itself  is  so  nearly  self- 
evident  as  to  need  no  argument. 

While  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  foundations  of  the 
Salem  community  are  thus  being  laid,  there  is  preparing 
on  the  other  side  of  the  sea  that  great  coup  d'etat  which  is 
to  create,  almost  in  a  day,  a  practically  independent  Ameri- 
can republic.  Until  this  is  accomplished  the  colonial  or- 
ganization is  according  to  a  common  pattern,  a  settlement 
on  a  distant  shore,  equipped,  sustained,  and  governed  with 
authority  all  but  sovereign  by  a  commercial  company 
at  the  metropolis,  within  the  reach,  and  thus  under  the 
control,  of  the  supreme  power.  Suppose,  now,  that  the 
shareholders  in  the  commercial  company  take  their  char- 
ter conferring  all  but  sovereign  authority,  and  transport 
themselves  and  it  across  the  sea  to  the  heart  of  the  settle- 
ment, there  ,to  admit  other  planters,  at  their  discretion,  to 
the  franchise  of  the  Company,  what  then  ?  This  was  the 
question  pondered  and  decided  in  those  dark  days  of  Eng- 
lish liberty,  when  the  triumph  of  despotism,  civil  and 
spiritual,  over  the  rights  of  EngHshmen  seemed  almost 
achieved.  The  old  officers  of  the  Company  resigned ; 
their  places  were  filled  by  Winthrop  and  Dudley  and 
others,  who  had  undertaken  to  emigrate ;  and  that  mem- 
orable season  of  1630  not  less  than  seventeen  ships,  carry- 
ing about  one  thousand  passengers,  sailed  from  English 
ports  for  Massachusetts  Bay.  It  was  the  beginning  of 
the  great  Puritan  exodus.     Attempts  were  made  by  the 

1  Morton's  Memorial,  in  Palfrey,  vol.  i.,  p.  298. 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  POLITY.  99 

king  and  the  archbishop  to  stay  the  flow  of  emigration, 
but  with  only  transient  success.  "  At  the  end  of  ten 
years  from  Winthrop's  arrival  about  twenty-one  thousand 
Englishmen,  or  four  thousand  families,  including  the  few 
hundreds  who  were  here  before  him,  had  come  over  in 
three  hundred  vessels,  at  a  cost  of  two  hundred  thousand 
pounds  sterling."  ^  What  could  not  be  done  by  despotism 
was  accomplished  by  the  triumph  of  the  people  over  the 
court.  The  meeting  of  the  Long  Parliament  in  1640  made 
it  safe  for  Puritans  to  stay  in  England ;  and  the  Puritans 
stayed.  The  current  of  migration  was  not  only  checked, 
but  turned  backward.  It  is  reckoned  that  within  four 
generations  from  that  time  more  persons  went  to  old  Eng- 
land than  originally  came  thence.  The  beginnings  of  this 
return  were  of  high  importance.  Among  the  home-going 
companies  were  men  who  were  destined  to  render  eminent 
service  in  the  reconstruction  of  English  society,  both  in 
the  state  and  in  the  army,  and  especially  in  the  church. 
The  example  of  the  New  England  churches,  voluminously 
set  forth  in  response  to  written  inquiries  from  England, 
had  great  influence  in  saving  the  mother  country  from 
suffering  the  imposition  of  a  Presbyterian  hierarchy  that 
threatened  to  be  as  intolerant  and  as  intolerable  as  the 
tyranny  of  Laud. 

For  the  order  of  the  New  England  churches  crystallized 
rapidly  into  a  systematic  and  definite  church  polity,  far 
removed  from  mere  Separatism  even  in  the  temperate 
form  in  which  this  had  been  illustrated  by  Robinson  and 
the  Pilgrim  church.  The  successive  companies  of  emi- 
grants as  they  arrived,  ship-load  after  ship-load,  each  with 
its  minister  or  college  of  ministers,  followed  with  almost 
monotonous  exactness  the  method  adopted  in  the  organi- 
zation of  the  church  in  Salem.     A  small  company  of  the 

1  Palfrey,  vol.  i.,  p.  584. 


lOO  AMERICAN  CHRISTIAXITY.  [Chap.  viii. 

best  Christians  entered  into  mutual  covenant  as  a  church 
of  Christ,  and  this  number,  growing  by  well-considered 
accessions,  added  to  itself  from  time  to  time  other  believers 
on  the  evidence  and  confession  of  their  faith  in  Christ. 
The  ministers,  all  or  nearly  all  of  whom  had  been  clergy- 
men in  the  orders  of  the  Church  of  England,  were  of  one 
mind  in  declining  to  consider  their  episcopal  ordination  in 
England  as  conferring  on  them  any  spiritual  authority  in 
a  church  newly  gathered  in  America.  They  found  rather 
in  the  free  choice  of  the  brotherhood  the  sign  of  a  divine 
call  to  spiritual  functions  in  the  church,  and  were  inducted 
into  office  by  the  primitive  form  of  the  laying  on  of  hands. 

In  many  ways,  but  especially  in  the  systematized  rela- 
tions of  the  churches  with  one  another  and  in  their  common 
relations  with  the  civil  government,  the  settled  National- 
ism of  the  great  Puritan  migration  was  illustrated.  With 
the  least  possible  constraint  on  the  individual  or  on  the 
church,  they  were  clear  in  their  purpose  that  their  young 
state  should  have  its  established  church. 

Through  what  rude  experiences  the  system  and  the  men 
were  tested  has  been  abundantly  told  and  retold.^  Roger 
Williams,  learned,  eloquent,  sincere,  generous,  a  man  after 
their  own  heart,  was  a  very  malignant  among  Separatists, 
separating  himself  not  only  from  the  English  church,  but 
from  all  who  would  not  separate  from  it,  and  from  all  who 
would  not  separate  from  these,  and  so  on,  until  he  could 
no  longer,  for  conscience'  sake,  hold  fellowship  with  his 
wife  in  family  prayers.  After  long  patience  the  colonial 
government  deemed  it  necessary  to  signify  to  him  that  if 
his  conscience  would  not  suffer  him  to  keep  quiet,  and  re- 
frain from  stirring  up  sedition,  and  embroiling  the  colony 

1  As,  for  example,  with  great  amplitude  by  Palfrey;  and  in  more  con- 
densed form  by  Dr.  Williston  Walker,  "  Congregationalists  "  (in  American 
Church  History  Series). 


AfJ  SSA  C/Il'SE  7  -k  'S'  iiXCL  ^STkEii  li'SS.  I O I 

with  the  English  government,  he  would  have  to  seek  free- 
dom for  that  sort  of  conscience  outside  of  their  jurisdiction  ; 
and  they  put  him  out  accordingly,  to  the  great  advantage 
of  both  parties  and  without  loss  of  mutual  respect  and 
love.  A  little  later,  a  clever  woman,  Mrs.  Ann  Hutchin- 
son, with  a  vast  conceit  of  her  superior  holiness  and  with 
the  ugly  censoriousness  which  is  a  usual  accompaniment 
of  that  grace,  demonstrated  her  genius  for  mixing  a  theo- 
logical controversy  with  personal  jealousies  and  public 
anxieties,  and  involved  the  whole  colony  of  the  Bay  in  an 
acrimonious  quarrel,  such  as  to  give  an  unpleasant  tone  of 
partisanship  and  ill  temper  to  the  proceedings  in  her  case, 
whether  ecclesiastical  or  civil.  She  seems  clearly  to  have 
been  a  willful  and  persistent  nuisance  in  the  little  commu- 
nity, and  there  were  good  reasons  for  wanting  to  be  rid  of 
her,  and  right  ways  to  that  end.  They  took  the  wrong 
way  and  tried  her  for  heresy.  In  like  manner,  when  the 
Quakers  came  among  them, — not  of  the  mild,  meek,  in- 
offensive modern  variety  to  which  we  are  accustomed,  but 
of  the  fierce,  aggressive  early  type, — instead  of  proceed- 
ing against  them  for  their  overt  offenses  against  the  state, 
disorderly  behavior,  pubhc  indecency,  contempt  of  court, 
sedition,  they  proceeded  against  them  distinctly  as  Qua- 
kers, thus  putting  themselves  in  the  wrong  and  conceding 
to  their  adversaries  that  crown  of  martyrdom  for  which 
their  souls  were  hankering  and  to  which  they  were  not 
fully  entitled. 

Of  course,  in  maintaining  the  principle  of  Nationalism, 
the  New  England  Puritans  did  not  decline  the  implications 
and  corollaries  of  that  principle.  It  was  only  to  a  pro- 
phetic genius  like  the  Separatist  Roger  Williams  that  it 
was  revealed  that  civil  government  had  no  concern  to  en- 
force "the  laws  of  the  first  table."  But  the  historical 
student  might  be  puzzled  to  name  any  other  church  es- 


102  AMEklGAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  viii. 

tablishment  under  which  less  of  molestation  was  suffered 
by  dissenters,  or  more  of  actual  encouragement  given  to 
rival  sects,  than  under  the  New  England  theocracies.  The 
Nationalist  principle  was  exclusive ;  the  men  who  held  it 
in  New  England  (subject  though  they  were  to  the  tempta- 
tions of  sectarian  emulation  and  fanatic  zeal)  were  large- 
minded  and  generous  men. 

The  general  uniformity  of  church  organization  among 
the  Puritan  plantations  is  the  more  remarkable  in  view  of 
the  notable  independence  and  originality  of  the  leading 
men,  who  represented  tendencies  of  opinion  as  widely  di- 
verging as  the  quasi-Presbyterianism  of  John  Eliot  and 
the  doctrinaire  democracy  of  John  Wise.  These  variations 
of  ecclesiastico-political  theory  had  much  to  do  with  the 
speedy  diffusion  of  the  immigrant  population.  For  larger 
freedom  in  building  his  ideal  New  Jerusalem,  the  states- 
manlike pastor,  Thomas  Hooker,  led  forth  his  flock  a  sec- 
ond time  into  the  great  and  terrible  wilderness,  and  with 
his  associates  devised  what  has  been  declared  to  be  "  the 
first  example  in  history  of  a  written  constitution — a  dis- 
tinct organic  law  constituting  a  government  and  defining 
its  powers."  ^  The  like  motive  determined  the  choice 
company  under  John  Davenport  and  Theophilus  Eaton  to 
refuse  all  inducements  and  importunities  to  remain  in 
Massachusetts,  choosing  rather  to  build  on  no  other 
man's  foundations  at  New  Haven. ^  At  the  end  of  a  hun- 
dred years  from  the  settlement  of  Boston  the  shores  and 

1  L.  Bacon,  "  Early  Constitutional  History  of  Connecticut." 
'^  L.  Bacon,  "Thirteen  Historical  Discourses."  The  two  mutually  inde- 
pendent republics  at  Hartford  and  New  Haven  represented  opposite  tenden- 
cies. That  at  New  Haven  was  after  the  highest  type  of  theocracy;  the 
Connecticut  colony  inclined  to  the  less  rigorous  model  of  Plymouth,  not 
exacting  church-membership  as  a  condition  of  voting.  How  important  this 
condition  appeared  to  the  mind  of  Davenport  may  be  judged  from  his  excla- 
mation when  it  ceased,  at  the  union  of  New  Haven  with  Connecticut.  He 
wrote  to  a  friend,  "  In  N.  H.  C.  Christ's  interest  is  miserably  lost;"  and 
prepared  to  turn  his  back  forever  on  the  colony  of  which  he  was  the  father. 


A    CHANGE  IMPENDING.  103 

river  valleys  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  were 
planted  with  towns,  each  self-governing  as  a  pure  democ- 
racy, each  with  its  church  and  educated  minister  and  its 
system  of  common  schools.  The  two  colleges  at  Cam- 
bridge and  New  Haven  were  busy  with  their  appointed 
work  of  training  young  men  to  the  service  of  God  "  in 
church  or  civil  state,"  And  this  great  and  prosperous  and 
intelligent  population  was,  with  inconsiderable  exceptions, 
the  unmingled  progeny  of  the  four  thousand  English 
families  who,  under  stress  of  the  tyranny  of  Charles  Stuart 
and  the  persecution  of  William  Laud,  had  crossed  the  sea 
in  the  twelve  years  from  1628  to  1640.   • 

The  traditions  of  the  fathers  of  New  England  had  been 
piously  cherished  down  to  this  third  and  fourth  genera- 
tion. The  model  of  an  ideal  state  that  had  been  set  up 
had,  meanwhile,  been  more  or  less  deformed,  especially 
in  Massachusetts,  by  the  interference  of  England;  the 
dominance  of  the  established  churches  had  been  slightly 
infringed  by  the  growth  here  and  there  of  dissenting 
churches.  Baptist,  Episcopahan,  and  Quaker;  but  the 
framework  both  of  church  and  of  state  was  wonderfully 
little  decayed  or  impaired.  The  same  simplicity  in  the 
outward  order  of  worship  was  maintained ;  the  same  form 
of  high  Calvinistic  theology  continued  to  be  cherished  as 
a  norm  of  sound  preaching  and  as  a  vehicle  of  instruction 
to  children.  All  things  continued  as  they  had  been ;  and 
yet  it  would  have  been  a  most  superficial  observer  who 
had  failed  to  detect  signs  of  approaching  change.  The 
disproportions  of  the  Calvinistic  system,  exaggerated  in 
the  popular  acceptation,  as  in  the  favorite  "  Day  of  Doom  " 
of  Michael  Wigglesworth,  forced  the  effort  after  practical 
readjustments.  The  magnifying  of  divine  sovereignty  in 
the  saving  of  men,  to  the  obscuring  of  human  responsibility, 
inevitably  mitigated  the  church's  reprobation  of  respectable 


I04  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  viii. 

people  who  could  testify  of  no  experience  of  conversion, 
and  yet  did  not  wish  to  relinquish  for  themselves  or  their 
families  their  relation  to  the  church.  Out  of  the  conflict 
between  two  aspects  of  theological  truth,  and  the  conflict 
between  the  Nationalist  and  the  Separatist  conceptions  of 
the  church,  and  especially  out  of  the  mistaken  policy  of 
restricting  the  civil  franchise  to  church-members,  came 
forth  that  device  of  the  "  Half-way  Covenant "  which 
provided  for  a  hereditary  quasi-membership  in  the  church 
for  worthy  people  whose  lives  were  without  scandal,  and 
who,  not  having  been  subjects  of  an  experience  of  con- 
scious conversion,  were  felt  to  be  not  altogether  to  blame 
for  the  fact.  From  the  same  causes  came  forth,  and 
widely  prevailed,  the  tenet  of  "  Stoddardeanism,"  so  called 
as  originating  in  the  pastoral  work,  and,  it  is  said,  in  the 
personal  experience,  of  Solomon  Stoddard,  the  saintly 
minister  of  Northampton  from  1669  till  1729,  when  he 
was  succeeded  by  his  colleague  and  grandson,  Jonathan 
Edwards.  It  is  the  view  that  the  Lord's  Supper  is  insti- 
tuted as  a  means  of  regeneration  as  well  as  of  sanctification, 
and  that  those  who  are  consciously  "  in  a  natural  condi- 
tion "  ought  not  to  be  repelled,  but  rather  encouraged  to 
come  to  it.  From  the  same  causes,  by  natural  sequence, 
came  that  so-called  Arminianism  ^  which,  instead  of  urging 
the  immediate  necessity  and  duty  of  conversion,  was  con- 
tent with  commending  a  "  diligent  use  of  means,"  which 
might  be  the  hopeful  antecedent  of  that  divine  grace. 

1  The  name,  applied  at  first  as  a  stigma  to  the  liberalizing  school  of  New 
England  theology,  may  easily  mislead  if  taken  either  in  its  earlier  historic 
sense  or  in  the  sense  which  it  was  about  to  acquire  in  the  Wesleyan  revival. 
The  surprise  of  the  eighteenth  century  New  England  theologians  at  finding 
the  word  associated  with  intense  fervor  of  preaching  and  of  religious  experi- 
ence is  expressed  in  the  saying,  "  There  is  all  the  difference  between  a  cold 
Arminian  and  a  hot  Arminian  that  there  is  between  a  cold  potato  and  a  hot 
potato."  For  a  lucid  account  of  the  subject,  see  W.  Walker,  "  History  of 
the  Congregational  Churches,"  chap.  viii. 


MORAL  DECLINE  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  105 

These  divergences  from  the  straight  lines  of  the  primeval 
New  England  Calvinism  had  already  begun  to  be  manifest 
during  the  Hfetime  of  some  of  the  founders.  Of  not  less 
grave  import  was  the  deflection  from  the  lofty  moral 
standard  of  the  fathers.  A  great  New  Englander,  Horace 
Bushnell,  maintaining  his  thesis  that  great  migrations  are 
followed  by  a  tendency  to  barbarism,  has  cited  in  proof 
this  part  of  New  England  history.^  As  early  as  the  sec- 
ond generation,  the  evil  tendency  seemed  so  formidable 
as  to  lead  to  the  calling,  by  the  General  Court  of  Massa- 
chusetts, of  the  "Reforming  Synod"  of  1679.  No  one 
can  say  that  the  heroic  age  of  New  England  was  past. 
History  has  no  nobler  record  to  show,  of  courage  and 
fortitude  in  both  men  and  women,  than  that  of  New  Eng- 
land in  the  Indian  wars.  But  the  terrors  of  those  days 
of  tribulation,  the  breaking  up  of  communities,  the  deci- 
mation of  the  population,  the  long  absences  of  the  young 
men  on  the  bloody  business  of  the  soldier,  were  not  fa- 
vorable for  maturing  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit.  Withal,  the 
intrigues  of  British  politicians,  the  threatened  or  actual 
molestations  of  the  civil  governments  of  the  colonies,  and 
the  corrupting  influences  proceeding  from  every  center  of 
viceregal  authority,  abetted  the  tendency  to  demoraliza- 
tion. By  the  end  of  the  first  third  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  New  England,  politically,  ecclesiastically,  theo- 
logically, and  morally,  had  come  into  a  state  of  unstable 
equilibrium.     An  overturn  is  impending. 

The  set  and  sturdy  resolution  of  the  founders  of  the  four 
colonies  of  the  New  England  confederacy  that  the  first 
planting  of  their  territory  should  be  on  rigorously  exclu- 
sive principles,  with  a  homogeneous  and  mutually  con- 
genial population,  under  a  firm  discipline  both  civil  and 
1  Sermon  on  "  Barbarism  the  First  Danger." 


I06  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  viii. 

ecclesiastical,  finds  an  experimental  justification  in  the 
history  of  the  neighbor  colony  of  Rhode  Island.  No 
commonwealth  can  boast  a  nobler  and  purer  name  for  its 
founder  than  the  name  of  Roger  Williams.  Rhode  Island, 
founded  in  generous  reaction  from  the  exclusiveness  of 
Massachusetts,  embodied  the  principle  of  "  soul-liberty  " 
in  its  earliest  acts.  The  announcement  that  under  its 
jurisdiction  no  man  was  to  be  molested  by  the  civil  power 
for  his  reUgious  belief  was  a  broad  invitation  to  all  who 
were  uncomfortable  under  the  neighboring  theocracies.^ 
And  the  invitation  was  freely  accepted.  The  companions 
of  Williams  were  reinforced  by  the  friends  of  Mrs.  Hutch- 
inson, some  of  them  men  of  substance  and  weight  of 
character.  The  increasing  number  of  persons  inclined  to 
Baptist  views  found  in  Rhode  Island  a  free  and  congenial 
atmosphere.  Williams  himself  was  not  long  in  coming  to 
the  Baptist  position  and  passing  beyond  it.  The  Qua- 
kers found  Rhode  Island  a  safe  asylum  from  persecution, 
whether  Puritan  or  Dutch.  More  disorderly  and  mis- 
chievous characters,  withal,  quartered  themselves,  unwel- 
come guests,  on  the  young  commonwealth,  a  thorn  in  its 
side  and  a  reproach  to  its  principles.  It  became  clear  to 
Williams  before  his  death  that  the  declaration  of  individual 
rights  and  independence  is  not  of  itself  a  sufficient  founda- 
tion for  a  state.  The  heterogeneous  population  failed  to 
settle  into  any  stable  polity.  After  two  generations  the 
tyranny  of  Andros,  so  odious  elsewhere  in  New  England, 
was  actually  welcome  as  putting  an  end  to  the  liberty  that 
had  been  hardly  better  than  anarchy. 

The  results  of  the  manner  of  the  first  planting  on  the 
growth  of  the  church  in  Rhode  Island  were  of  a  like  sort. 

1  And  yet,  even  in  the  Rhode  Island  communities,  the  arbitrary  right  of 
exclusion,  in  the  exercise  of  which  Roger  Williams  had  been  shut  out  from 
Massachusetts,  was  asserted  and  adopted.  It  was  forbidden  to  sell  land  to  a 
newcomer,  except  by  consent  of  prior  settlers. 


THE   RHODE   ISLAND   SECTS. 


107 


I 


There  is  no  room  for  question  that  the  material  of  a  true 
church  was  there,  in  the  person  of  faithful  and  consecrated 
disciples  of  Christ,  and  therefore  there  must  have  been 
gathering  together  in  common  worship  and  mutual  edifi- 
cation. But  the  sense  of  individual  rights  and  responsi- 
bilities seems  to  have  overshadowed  the  love  for  ths  whole 
brotherhood  of  disciples.  The  condition  of  the  church 
illustrated  the  Separatism  of  Williams  reduced  to  the  ab- 
surd. There  was  feeble  organization  of  Christians  in  knots 
and  coteries.  But  sixty  years  passed  before  the  building 
of  the  first  house  of  worship  in  Providence,  and  at  the  end 
of  almost  a  century  "  there  had  not  existed  in  the  whole 
colony  more  than  eight  or  ten  churches  of  any  denomina- 
tion, and  these  were  mostly  in  a  very  feeble  and  precarious 
state."  1 

Meanwhile  the  inadequate  compensations  of  a  state  of 
schism  began  to  show  themselves.  In  the  absence  of  any 
organized  fellowship  of  the  whole  there  grew  up,  more  than 
elsewhere,  a  mutual  tolerance  and  even  love  among  the 
petty  sects,  the  lesson  of  which  was  learned  where  it  was 
most  needed.  The  churches  of  "  the  standing  order  "  in 
Massachusetts  not  only  admired  but  imitated  "  the  peace 
and  love  which  societies  of  different  modes  of  worship  en- 
tertained toward  each  other  in  Rhode  Island."  In  1718, 
not  forty  years  from  the  time  when  Baptist  churches 
ceased  to  be  religio  illicita  in  Massachusetts,  three  fore- 
most pastors  of  Boston  assisted  in  the  ordination  of  a 
minister  to  the  Baptist  church,  at  which  Cotton  Mather 
preached  the  sermon,  entitled  "Good  Men  United."  It 
contained  a  frank  confession  of  repentance  for  the  persecu- 
tions of  which  the  Boston  churches  had  been  guilty.- 

1  Dr.  J.  G.  Vose,  "  Congregationalism  in  Rhode  Island,"  pp.  l6,  53,  63. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  56,  57.  "  Good  men,  alas!  have  done  such  ill  things  as  these. 
New  England  also  has  in  former  times  done  something  of  this  aspect  which 
would  not  now  be  so  well  approved ;  in  which,  if  the  brethren  in  whose  house 


I08  AMERICA  A'  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  vhi. 

There  is  a  double  lesson  to  be  learned  from  the  history 
of  these  neighbor  colonies :  first,  that  a  rigorously  exclu- 
sive selection  of  men  like-minded  is  the  best  seed  for  the 
first  planting  of  a  commonwealth  in  the  wilderness;  sec- 
ondly, that  the  exclusiveness  that  is  justified  in  the  infancy 
of  such  a  community  cannot  wisely,  nor  even  righteously, 
nor  even  possibly,  be  maintained  in  its  adolescence  and 
maturity.  The  church-state  of  Massachusetts  and  New 
Haven  was  overthrown  at  the  end  of  the  first  generation 
by  external  interference.  If  it  had  continued  a  few  years 
longer  it  must  have  fallen  of  itself;  but  it  lasted  long 
enough  to  be  the  mold  in  which  the  civilization  of  the 
young  States  should  set  and  harden. 

we  are  now  convened  met  with  anything  too  unbrotherly,  they  now  with  sat- 
isfaction hear  us  expressing  our  dislike  of  everything  which  looked  like  per- 
secution in  the  days  that  have  passed  over  us." 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE    MIDDLE    COLONIES:    THE   JERSEYS,    DELAWARE, 

AND    PENNSYLVANIA — THE    QUAKER 

COLONIZATION — GEORGIA. 

The  bargainings  and  conveyancings,  the  confirmations 
and  reclamations,  the  setting  up  and  overturning,  which, 
after  the  conquest  of  the  New  Netherlands,  had  the  effect 
to  detach  the  peninsula  of  New  Jersey  from  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  New  York,  and  to  divide  it  for  a  time  into  two  gov- 
ernments, belong  to  political  history;  but  they  had,  of 
course,  an  important  influence  on  the  planting  of  the  church 
in  that  territory.  One  result  of  them  was  a  wide  diversity 
of  materials  in  the  early  growth  of  the  church. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  Dutch  occupation,  one  lonely 
congregation  had  been  planted  in  that  region  which,  at  a 
later  time,  when  the  Dutch  church  in  America  had  awaked 
from  its  lethargy,  was  to  become  known  as  "  the  garden  of 
the  Dutch  church."  ^ 

After  the  extinction  of  the  high  theocracy  of  the  New 
Haven  Colony  by  the  merger  of  it  in  Connecticut,  a  whole 
church  and  town,  headed  by  the  pastor,  having  secured 
such  guaranty  of  their  political  liberty  as  the  unstable  gov- 
ernment of  New  Jersey  was  able  to  give,  left  the  homes 
endeared  to  them  by  thirty  years  of  toil  and  thrift,  and 
lifting  the  ark  of  the  covenant  by  the  staves,  set  them- 

l  Corwin,  pp.  58,  128. 
109 


no  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  ix. 

selves  down  beside  the  Passaic,  calling  their  plantation  the 
New-Ark,  and  reinstituted  their  fundamental  principle  of 
restricting  the  franchise  to  members  of  the  church.  Thus 
"  with  one  heart  they  resolved  to  carry  on  their  spiritual 
and  town  affairs  according  to  godly  government."  The 
Puritan  migration,  of  which  this  was  the  nucleus,  had  an 
influence  on  the  legislation  and  the  later  history  of  New 
Jersey  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  numbers. 

Twenty  years  later  the  ferocious  persecution  of  the 
Scottish  Covenanters,  which  was  incited  by  the  fears  or 
the  bloody  vindictiveness  of  James  II.  after  the  futile  in- 
surrection of  Monmouth,  furnished  a  motive  for  emigration 
to  the  best  people  in  North  Britain,  which  was  quickly 
seized  and  exploited  by  the  operators  in  Jersey  lands. 
Assurances  of  religious  liberty  were  freely  given ;  men  of 
influence  were  encouraged  to  bring  over  large  companies ; 
and  in  1686  the  brother  of  the  martyred  Duke  of  Argyle 
was  made  governor  of  East  Jersey.  The  considerable 
settlements  of  Scotchmen  found  congenial  neighbors  in  the 
New  Englanders  of  Newark.  A  system  of  free  schools, 
early  established  by  a  law  of  the  commonwealth,  is  natu- 
rally referred  to  their  common  influence. 

Meanwhile  a  series  of  events  of  the  highest  consequence 
to  the  future  of  the  American  church  had  been  in  progress 
in  the  western  half  of  the  province.  Passing  from  hand  to 
hand,  the  ownership  and  lordship  of  West  Jersey  had  be- 
come vested  in  a  land  company  dominated  by  Quakers. 
For  the  first  time  in  the  brief  history  of  that  sect,  it  was 
charged  with  the  responsibility  of  the  organization  and 
conduct  of  government.  Hitherto  it  had  been  publicly 
known  by  the  fierce  and  defiant  and  often  outrageous 
protests  of  its  representatives  against  existing  governments 
and  dignities  both  in  state  and  in  church,  such  as  exposed 
them  to  the  natural  and  reasonable  suspicion  of  being  wild 


THE   QUAKERS  IN  NEW  JERSEY.  I  I  I 

and  mischievous  anarchists.  The  opportunities  and  temp- 
tations that  come  to  those  in  power  would  be  a  test  of  the 
quality  of  the  sect  more  severe  than  trial  by  the  cart-tail 
and  the  gibbet. 

The  Quakers  bore  the  test  nobly.  Never  did  a  commer- 
cial company  show  itself  so  little  mercenary;  never  was 
a  sovereign  more  magnanimous  and  unselfish.  With  the 
opening  of  the  province  to  settlement,  the  proprietors  set 
forth  a  statement  of  their  purposes :  "  We  lay  a  foundation 
for  after  ages  to  understand  their  liberty  as  men  and  Chris- 
tians, that  they  may  not  be  brought  into  bondage  but  by 
their  own  consent;  for  we  put  the  power  in  the  people." 
This  was  followed  by  a  code  of  "  Concessions  and  Agree- 
ments "  in  forty-four  articles,  which  were  at  once  a  consti- 
tution of  government  and  a  binding  compact  with  such  as 
should  enter  themselves  as  colonists  on  these  terms.  They 
left  little  to  be  desired  in  securities  for  personal,  political, 
and  religious  liberty.^ 

At  once  population  began  to  flow  amain.  In  1677  two 
hundred  and  thirty  Quakers  came  in  one  ship  and  founded 
the  town  of  Burlington.  By  1 68 1  there  had  come  fourteen 
hundred.  Weekly,  monthly,  quarterly  meetings  were  es- 
tablished;  houses  of  worship  were  built;  and  in  August, 
1 68 1,  the  Quaker  hierarchy  (if  it  may  so  be  called  without 
offense)  was  completed  by  the  establishment  of  the  Burling- 
ton Yearly  Meeting.  The  same  year  the  corporation,  en- 
couraged by  its  rapid  success,  increased  its  numbers  and 
its  capital,  bought  out  the  proprietors  of  East  Jersey, 
and  appointed  as  governor  over  the  whole  province  the 

1  It  is  notable  that  the  concessions  offered  already  by  Carteret  and  Berke- 
ley in  1664  contained  an  unlimited  pledge  of  religious  liberty,  "any  law, 
statute,  usage,  or  custom  of  the  realm  of  England  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing" (Mulford,  "  History  of  New  Jersey,"  p.  134).  A  half-century  of 
experience  in  colonization  had  satisfied  some  minds  that  the  principle  adopted 
by  the  Quakers  for  conscience'  sake  was  also  a  sound  business  principle. 


112  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  IX. 

eminent  Quaker  theologian,  Robert  Barclay.  The  Quaker 
regime  continued,  not  always  smoothly,  till  1688,  when  it 
was  extinguished  by  James  II.  at  the  end  of  his  perfidious 
campaigns  against  American  liberties. 

This  enterprise  of  the  Quaker  purchase  and  settlement 
of  New  Jersey  brings  upon  the  stage  of  American  history 
the  great  apostle  of  Christian  colonization,  William  Penn. 
He  came  into  relation  to  the  New  Jersey  business  as  arHter 
of  some  differences  that  arose  between  the  two  Friends  who 
had  bought  West  Jersey  in  partnership.  He  continued  in 
connection  with  it  when  the  Quaker  combination  had  ex- 
tended itself  by  purchase  over  the  whole  Jersey  peninsula, 
and  he  was  a  trusted  counselor  of  the  corporation,  and  the 
representative  of  its  interests  at  court.  Thus  there  grew 
more  and  more  distinct  before  his  peculiarly  adventurous 
and  enterprising  mind  the  vision  of  the  immense  possi- 
bihties,  political,  religious,  and  commercial,  of  American 
colonization.  With  admirable  business  shrewdness  com- 
bined with  courtly  tact,  he  canceled  an  otherwise  hopeless 
debt  from  the  crown  in  consideration  of  the  concession  to 
him  of  a  domain  of  imperial  wealth  and  dimensions,  with 
practically  unlimited  rights  of  jurisdiction.  At  once  he 
put  into  exercise  the  advantages  and  opportunities  which 
were  united  in  him  so  as  never  before  in  the  promoter  of 
a  like  enterprise,  and  achieved  a  success  speedy  and  splen- 
did beyond  all  precedent. 

The  providential  preparations  for  this  great  enterprise 
— "  the  Holy  Experiment,"  as  Penn  delighted  to  call  it — 
had  been  visibly  in  progress  in  England  for  not  more  than 
the  third  part  of  a  century.  It  was  not  the  less  divine 
for  being  wholly  logical  and  natural,  that,  just  when  the 
Puritan  Reformation  culminated  in  the  victory  of  the 
Commonwealth,  the  Quaker  Reformation  should  suddenly 


THE   QUAKER  REFORMATION.  I13 

break  forth.  Puritanism  was  the  last  expression  of  that 
appeal  from  the  church  to  the  Scriptures,  from  existing 
traditions  of  Christianity  to  its  authentic  original  docu- 
ments, which  is  the  essence  of  Protestantism,  In  Puritan- 
ism, reverence  for  the  Scriptures  is  exaggerated  to  the 
point  of  superstition.  The  doctrine  that  God  of  old  had 
spoken  by  holy  men  was  supplemented  by  the  pretension 
that  God  had  long  ago  ceased  so  to  speak  and  never 
would  so  speak  again.  The  claim  that  the  Scriptures 
contain  a  sufficient  guide  to  moral  duty  and  religious 
truth  was  exorbitantly  stretched  to  include  the  last  details 
of  church  organization  and  worship,  and  the  minute  direc- 
tion of  political  and  other  secular  affairs.  In  many  a  case 
the  Scriptures  thus  applied  did  highly  ennoble  the  polity 
and  legislation  of  the  Puritans,^  In  other  cases,  not  a  few, 
the  Scriptures,  perverted  from  their  true  purpose  and 
wrested  by  a  vicious  and  conceited  exegesis,  were  brought 
into  collision  with  the  law  written  on  the  heart.  The  Bible 
was  used  to  contradict  the  moral  sense.  It  was  high  time 
for  the  Quaker  protest,  and  it  was  inevitable  that  this  pro- 
test should  be  extravagant  and  violent. 

In  their  bold  reassertion  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  that  his  light  "  lighteth  every  man  who  cometh 
into  the  world,"  it  is  not  strange  that  the  first  Quakers 
should  sometimes  have  lost  sight  of  those  principles  the 
enunciation  of  which  gives  such  a  character  of  sober  sanity 
to  the  apostolic  teachings  on  this  subject — that  a  divine 

1  See  the  vindication  of  the  act  of  the  New  Haven  colonists  in  adopting 
the  laws  of  Moses  as  the  statute-book  of  the  colony,  in  the  "  Thirteen  His- 
torical Discourses  of  L.  Bacon,"  pp.  29-32.  "  The  greatest  and  boldest  im- 
provement which  has  been  made  in  criminal  jurisprudence  by  any  one  act 
since  the  dark  ages  was  that  which  was  made  by  our  fathers  when  they  deter- 
mined '  that  the  judicial  laws  of  God,  as  they  were  delivered  by  Moses,  and 
as  they  are  a  fence  to  the  moral  law,  being  neither  typical  nor  ceremonial  nor 
having  any  reference  to  Canaan,  shall  be  accounted  of  moral  equity,  and  gen- 
erally Bind  all  offenders  and  be  a  rule  to  all  the  courts.'  " 


114  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  IX. 

influence  on  the  mind  does  not  discharge  one  from  the 
duty  of  self-control,  but  that  "  the  spirits  of  the  prophets 
are  subject  to  the  prophets";  that  the  divine  inworking 
does  not  suspend  nor  supersede  man's  volition  and  activ- 
ity, but  that  it  behooves  man  to  "  work,  because  God 
worketh  in  him  to  will  and  to  work."  The  lapse  from 
these  characteristically  Christian  principles  into  the  en- 
thusiastic, fanatic,  or  heathen  conception  of  inspiration  has 
been  a  perpetually  recurring  incident  in  the  history  of  the 
church  in  all  ages,  and  especially  in  times  of  deep  and 
earnest  spiritual  feeling.  But  in  the  case  of  the  Quaker 
revival  it  was  attended  most  conspicuously  by  its  evil  con- 
sequences. Half-crazy  or  more  than  half-crazy  adven- 
turers and  hysterical  women,  taking  up  fantastical  missions 
in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  never  so  happy  as  when  they 
felt  called  of  God  to  some  peculiarly  outrageous  course  of 
behavior,  associated  themselves  with  sincere  and  consci- 
entious reformers,  adding  to  the  unpopularity  of  the  new 
opinions  the  odium  justly  due  to  their  own  misdemeanors. 
But  the  prophet  whose  life  and  preaching  had  begun  the 
Quaker  Reformation  was  not  found  wanting  in  the  gifts 
which  the  case  required.  Like  other  great  religious 
founders,  George  Fox  combined  with  profound  religious 
conviction  a  high  degree  of  tact  and  common  sense  and 
the  faculty  of  organization.  While  the  gospel  of  "  the 
Light  that  lighteth  every  man  "  was  speeding  with  won- 
derful swiftness  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  there  was  grow- 
ing in  the  hands  of  the  founder  the  framework  of  a  discipline 
by  which  the  elements  of  disorder  should  be  controlled.^ 
The  result  was  a  firmly  articulated  organization  compacted 
by  common  faith  and  zeal  and  mutual  love,  and  by  the 

1  For  the  dealing  of  Fox  with  the  case  of  John  Parrot,  who  had  a  divine 
call  to  wear  his  hat  in  meeting,  see  the  "  History  of  the  Society  of  Friends," 
by  the  Messrs.  Thomas,  pp.  197-199  (American  Church  History  Series, 
vol.  xii.). 


QUAKERS   ON  THE   CONTINENT.  II5 

external  pressure  of  fierce  persecution  extending  through- 
out the  British  empire  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean. 

Entering  into  continental  Europe,  the  Quaker  Reforma- 
tion found  itself  anticipated  in  the  progress  of  religious 
history.  The  protests  of  the  Anabaptists  against  what 
they  deemed  the  shortcomings  of  the  Lutheran  Reforma- 
tion had  been  attended  with  far  wilder  extravagances 
than  those  of  the  early  Quakers,  and  had  been  repressed 
with  ruthless  severity.  But  the  political  and  mihtant 
Anabaptists  were  succeeded  by  communities  of  mild  and 
inoffensive  non-resistants,  governing  themselves  by  a  nar- 
row and  rigorous  discipline,  and  differing  from  the  order 
of  Quakers  mainly  at  this  point,  that  whereas  the  Quakers 
rejected  all  sacraments,  these  insisted  strenuously  on  their 
own  views  of  Baptism  and  the  Supper,  and  added  to  them 
the  ordinance  of  the  Washing  of  Feet.  These  communi- 
ties were  to  be  found  throughout  Protestant  Europe,  from 
the  Alps  to  the  North  Sea,  but  were  best  known  in  Hol- 
land and  Lower  Germany,  where  they  were  called  Men- 
nonites,  from  the  priest,  Menno  Simons,  who,  a  hundred 
years  before  George  Fox,  had  enunciated  the  same  prin- 
ciples of  duty  founded  on  the  strict  interpretation  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

The  combination  of  circumstances  to  promote  the  "  Holy 
Experiment"  of  William  Penn  is  something  prodigious. 
How  he  could  be  a  petted  favorite  at  the  shameful  court 
of  the  last  two  Stuarts,  while  his  brethren  throughout  the 
realm  were  languishing  under  persecution,  is  a  fact  not  in 
itself  honorable,  but  capable  of  being  honorably  explained ; 
and  both  the  persecution  and  the  court  favor  helped  on 
his  enterprise.  The  time  was  opportune ;  the  period  of 
tragical  uncertainty  in  colonization  was  past;  emigration 
had  come  to  be  a  richly  promising  enterprise.  For  leader 
of  the  enterprise  what  endowment  was  lacking  in  the  ele- 


Il6  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  ix. 

gantly  accomplished  young  courtier,  holding  as  his  own 
the  richest  domain  that  could  be  carved  out  of  a  continent, 
who  was  at  the  same  time  brother,  in  unaffected  humility 
and  unbounded  generosity,  in  a  great  fraternity  bound 
together  by  principles  of  ascetic  self-denial  and  devotion 
to  the  kingdom  of  God? 

Penn's  address  inviting  colonists  to  his  new  domain 
announced  the  outlines  of  his  scheme.  His  great  powers 
of  jurisdiction  were  held  by  him  only  to  be  transferred  to 
the  future  inhabitants  in  a  free  and  righteous  government. 
"  I  purpose,"  said  he,  conscious  of  the  magnanimity  of  the 
intention,  "  for  the  matters  of  liberty,  I  purpose  that 
which  is  extraordinary — to  leave  myself  and  successors 
no  power  of  doing  mischief,  that  the  will  of  one  man  may 
not  hinder  the  good  of  a  whole  country;"  and  added,  in 
language  which  might  have  fallen  from  his  intimate  friend, 
Algernon  Sidney,  but  was  fully  expressive  of  his  own 
views,  "  It  is  the  great  end  of  government  to  support 
power  in  reverence  with  the  people,  and  to  secure  the 
people  from  the  abuse  of  power ;  for  liberty  without  obe- 
dience is  confusion,  and  obedience  without  liberty  is  slav- 
ery."' With  assurances  of  universal  civil  and  religious 
liberty  in  conformity  with  these  principles,  he  offered  land 
at  forty  shillings  for  a  hundred  acres,  subject  to  a  small 
quit-rent. 

Through  the  correspondence  of  the  Friends'  meetings, 
these  proposals  could  be  brought  to  the  attention  of  many 
thousands  of  people,  sifted  and  culled  by  persecution,  the 
best  stuff  for  a  colony  in  all  the  United  Kingdom.  The 
response  was  immediate.  Within  a  year  three  ship-loads 
uf  emigrants  went  out.  The  next  year  Penn  himself  went 
with  a  company  of  a  hundred,  and  stayed  long  enough  to 
see  the  government  organized  by  the  free  act  of  the  colo- 
1  Quoted  in  Bancroft,  vol.  iii.,  p.  366, 


PENN'S  '•HOLY  EXPERIMENT."  WJ 

nists  on  the  principles  which  he  had  set  forth,  and  in  that 
brief  sojourn  of  two  years  to  witness  the  beginnings  of  a 
splendid  prosperity.  His  city  of  Philadelphia  consisted  in 
August,  1683,  of  three  or  four  httle  cottages.  Two  years 
utLerward  it  contained  about  six  hundred  houses,  and  the 
schoolmaster  and  the  printing-press  had  begun  their  work.i 
The  growth  went  on  accelerating.  In  one  year  seven 
thousand  settlers  are  said  to  have  arrived ;  before  the  end 
of  the  century  the  colonists  numbered  more  than  twenty 
thousand,  and  Philadelphia  had  become  a  thriving  town.2 
But  Great  Britain,  although  the  chief  source  of  popula- 
tion, was  not  the  only  source.  It  had  been  part  of  the  provi- 
dential equipment  of  Penn  for  his  great  work  to  endow 
him  with  the  gift  of  tongues  and  bring  him  into  intimate 
relations  with  the  many  congregations  of  the  broken  and 
persecuted  sects  kindred  to  his  own  on  the  continent  of 
Europe.  The  summer  and  autumn  of  1678,  four  years 
before  his  coming  to  Pennsylvania,  had  been  spent  by  him, 
in  company  with  George  Fox,  Robert  Barclay,  and  other 
eminent  Friends,  in  a  mission  tour  through  Holland  (where 
he  preached  in  his  mother's  own  language)  and  Germany. 
The  fruit  of  this  preaching  and  of  previous  missions  ap- 
peared in  an  unexpected  form.  One  of  the  first  impor- 
tant accessions  to  the  colony  was  the  company  of  Men- 
nonites  led  by  Pastorius,  the  "  Pennsylvania  Pilgrim," 
who  founded  Germantown,  now  a  beautiful  suburb  of 
Philadelphia.  Group  after  group  of  picturesque  devotees 
that  had  been  driven  into  seclusion  and  eccentricity  by 
long  and  cruel  persecution — the  Tunkers,  the  Schwenk- 
felders,  the  Amish — kept  coming  and  bringing  with  them 
their  traditions,  their  customs,  their  sacred  books,  their 
timid  and  pathetic  disposition  to  hide  by  themselves,  some- 
times in  quasi-monastic  communities  like  that  at  Ephrata, 

1  Bancroft,  vol.  ii.,  p.  392.  ^  H.  C.  Lodge,  p.  213. 


il8  AMERICAN  CHRlSTIANITV.  [Chap.  ix. 

sometimes  in  actual  hermitage,  as  in  the  ravines  of  the 
Wissahickon.  But  the  most  important  contribution  of 
this  kind  came  from  the  suffering  villages  of  the  Rhenish 
Palatinate  ravaged  with  fire  and  sword  by  the  French 
armies  in  1688,  So  numerous  were  the  fugitives  from  the 
Palatinate  that  the  name  of  Palatine  came  to  be  applied 
in  general  to  German  refugees,  from  whatever  region.  This 
migration  of  the  German  sects  (to  be  distinguished  from 
the  later  migration  from  the  established  Lutheran  and 
Reformed  churches)  furnished  the  material  for  that  curious 
"  Pennsylvania  Dutch  "  population  which  for  more  than 
two  centuries  has  lain  encysted,  so  to  speak,  in  the  body 
politic  and  ecclesiastic  of  Pennsylvania,  speaking  a  bar- 
barous jargon  of  its  own,  and  refusing  to  assimilate  with 
the  surrounding  people. 

It  was  the  rough  estimate  of  Dr.  Franklin  that  colonial 
Pennsylvania  was  made  up  of  one  third  Quakers,  one  third 
Germans,  and  one  third  miscellaneous.  The  largest  item 
under  this  last  head  was  the  Welsh,  most  of  them  Qua- 
kers, who  had  been  invited  by  Penn  with  the  promise  of 
a  separate  tract  of  forty  thousand  acres  in  which  to  main- 
tain their  own  language,  government,  and  institutions. 
Happily,  the  natural  and  patriotic  longing  of  these  immi- 
grants for  a  New  Wales  on  this  side  the  sea  was  not  to  be 
realized.  The  "  Welsh  Barony  "  became  soon  a  mere  geo- 
graphical tradition,  and  the  whole  strength  of  this  fervid 
and  religious  people  enriched  the  commonwealth.i 

Several  notable  beginnings  of  church  history  belong  to 
the  later  part  of  the  period  under  consideration. 

An  interesting  line  of  divergence  from  the  current  teach- 
ings of  the  Friends  was  led,  toward  the  end  of  the  seven- 

1  For  a  fuller  account  of  the  sources  of  the  population  of  Pennsylvania, 
see  "  The  Making  of  Pennsylvania,"  by  Sydney  George  Fisher  (Philadel- 
phia, 1896). 


KEITH'S  SCHISM  AXD   MISSION.  119 

teenth  century,  by  George  Keith,  for  thirty  years  a  recog- 
nized preacher  of  the  Society.  One  is  impressed,  in  a 
superficial  glance  at  the  story,  with  the  reasonableness  and 
wisdom  of  some  of  Keith's  positions,  and  with  the  intellec- 
tual vigor  of  the  man.  But  the  discussion  grew  into  an 
acrimonious  controversy,  and  the  controversy  deepened 
into  a  schism,  which  culminated  in  the  disowning  of  Keith 
by  the  Friends  in  America,  and  afterward  by  the  London 
Yearly  Meeting,  to  which  he  had  appealed.  Dropped 
thus  by  his  old  friends,  he  was  taken  up  by  the  English 
Episcopalians  and  ordained  by  the  Bishop  of  London,  and 
in  1702  returned  to  America  as  the  first  missionary  of 
the  newly  organized  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts.  An  active  missionary  campaign 
was  begun  and  sustained  by  the  large  resources  of  the 
Venerable  Society  until  the  outbreak  of  the  War  of 
Independence.  The  movement  had  great  advantages  for 
success.  It  was  next  of  kin  to  the  expiring  Swedish 
Lutheran  Church  in  the  three  counties  that  became  after- 
ward the  State  of  Delaware,  and  heir  to  its  venerable 
edifices  and  its  good  will;  it  was  the  official  and  court 
church  of  the  royal  governors,  and  after  the  degenerate 
sons  of  William  Penn  abandoned  the  simple  worship,  as 
well  as  the  clean  living,  in  which  their  father  delighted,  it 
was  the  church  promoted  by  the  proprietary  interest; 
withal  it  proved  itself,  both  then  and  afterward,  to  hold  a 
deposit  of  truth  and  of  usages  of  worship  peculiarly  adapted 
to  supplement  the  defects  of  the  Quaker  system.  It  is 
not  easy  to  explain  the  ill  success  of  the  enterprise.  In 
Philadelphia  it  took  strong  root,  and  the  building,  in  1727, 
of  Christ  Church,  which  survives  to  this  day,  a  monu- 
ment of  architectural  beauty  as  well  as  historical  interest, 
marks  an  important  epoch  in  the  progress  of  Christianity 
in  America.    But  in  the  rural  districts  the  work  languished. 


120  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  ix. 

Parishes,  seemingly  well  equipped,  fell  into  a  "  deplorable 
condition  " ;  churches  were  closed  and  parishes  dwindled 
away.  About  the  year  1724  Governor  Keith  reported  to 
the  Bishop  of  London  that  outside  the  city  there  were 
*'  twelve  or  thirteen  little  edifices,  at  times  supplied  by  one 
or  other  of  the  poor  missionaries  sent  from  the  society." 
Nearly  all  that  had  been  gained  by  the  Episcopal  Church 
in  Pennsylvania,  where  the  "Venerable  Society"  had 
maintained  at  times  forty-seven  missionaries  and  twenty- 
four  central  stations,  was  wiped  out  by  the  Revolutionary 
War.i 

Another  great  beginning  that  comes  within  the  field  of 
vision  in  the  first  four  decades  of  the  eighteenth  century 
is  the  planting  of  the  great  national  churches  of  Germany. 
We  have  observed  the  migration  of  the  minor  sects  of 
Germany — so  complete,  in  some  cases,  that  the  entire  sect 
was  transplanted,  leaving  no  representative  in  the  father- 
land. In  the  mixed  multitude  of  refugees  from  the  Palat- 
inate and  other  ravaged  provinces  were  many  belonging 
both  to  the  Lutheran  and  to  the  Reformed  churches,  as 
well  as  some  Catholics.  But  they  were  scattered  as  sheep 
having  no  shepherd.  The  German  Lutheran  and  Re- 
formed immigration  was  destined  to  attain  by  and  by  to 

1  Tiffany,  "  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,"  pp.  210-212,  220.  In  a  few 
instances  the  work  suffered  from  the  unfit  character  of  the  missionaries. 
A  more  common  fault  was  the  vulgar  proselyting  spirit  which  appears  in  the 
missionaries'  reports  ("  Digest  of  S.  P.  G.  Records,"  pp.  12-79).  -^  cer- 
tain w^i/"  insularity  sometimes  betrays  itself  in  their  incapacity  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  their  new-world  surroundings.  Brave  and  zealous  Mr.  Barton  in 
Cumberland  County  recites  a  formidable  list  of  sects  into  which  the  people 
are  divided,  and  with  unconscious  humor  recounts  his  efforts  to  introduce  one 
sect  more  {ibid.,  p.  37).  They  could  hardly  understand  that  in  crossing  the 
ocean  tliey  did  not  bring  w  ith  them  the  prerogatives  of  a  national  establish- 
ment, but  were  in  a  position  of  dissent  from  the  existing  establishments.  "  It 
grieved  them  that  Church  of  England  men  should  be  stigmatize^  with  the  grim 
ami  horrid  title  of  dissenters"  ("The  Making  of  Pennsylvania,"  p.  192). 
One  of  the  most  pathetically  amusing  instances  of  the  misfit  of  the  English- 
man in  America  is  that  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Poyer  at  Jamaica,  L.  I.  The  meet- 
ing-Iiouse  and  glebe-lands  that  had  been  provided  by  the  people  of  that  parish 


GERMANS  AND   SCOTCH-IRISH.  121 

enormous  proportions;  but  so  late  was  the  considerable 
expansion  of  it,  and  so  tardy  and  inefficient  the  attention 
given  to  this  diaspora  by  the  mother  churches,  that  the 
classical  organization  of  the  Reformed  Church  dates  only 
from  1747,  and  that  of  the  Lutheran  Church  from  1760.^ 
The  beautiful  career  of  the  Moravians  began  in  Pennsyl- 
vania so  late  as  1734.  In  general  it  may  be  said  that  the 
German-American  church  was  affected  only  indirectly  by 
the  Great  Awakening. 

But  the  greatest  in  its  consequences,  both  religious  and 
political,  of  the  great  beginnings  in  the  early  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  was  the  first  flow  of  the  swelling  tide 
of  the  Scotch-Irish  immigration.  Already,  in  1669,  an 
English  Presbyterian,  Matthew  Hill,  persuaded  to  the 
work  by  Richard  Baxter,  was  ministering  to  "  many  of  the 
Reformed  religion"  in  Maryland;  and  in  1683  an  appeal 
from  them  to  the  Irish  presbytery  of  Laggan  had  brought 
over  to  their  aid  that  sturdy  and  fearless  man  of  God, 
Francis  Makemie,  whose  successful  defense  in  1707,  when 
unlawfully  imprisoned  in  New  York  by  that  unsavory  de- 
fender of  the  Anglican  faith,  Lord  Cornbury,  gave  assur- 
ance of  religious  liberty  to  his  communion  throughout  the 
colonies.     In  1 705  he  was  moderator  of  the  first  presby- 

for  the  use  of  themselves  and  their  pastor  were  gotten,  neither  honorably  nor 
lawfully,  into  the  possession  of  the  missionary  of  the  "  S.  P.  G."  and  his 
scanty  following,  and  held  by  him  in  spite  of  law  and  justice  for  twenty-five 
years.  At  last  the  owners  of  the  property  succeeded  in  evicting  him  by 
process  of  law.  The  victim  of  this  persecution  reported  plaintively  to  the 
society  his  "  great  and  almost  continual  contentions  with  the  Independents  in 
his  parish."  The  litigation  had  been  over  the  salary  settled  for  the  minister 
of  that  parish,  and  also  over  the  glebe-lands.  But  "  by  a  late  Tryal  at  Law 
he  has  lost  them  and  the  Church  itself,  of  which  his  congregation  has  had  the 
possession  for  twenty-five  years."  The  grievance  went  to  the  heart  of  his 
congregation,  who  bewail  "  the  emperious  behaviour  of  these  our  enemies, 
■who  stick  not  to  call  themselves  the  Established  Church  and  us  Dissenters  " 
("  Digest  of  S.  P.  G.  Records,"  p.  61 ;  Corwin,  "  Dutch  Church,"  pp.  104, 
105,  126,  127). 

i  Dubbs,  "Reformed  Church,"  p.  281;  Jacobs,  "The  Lutherans," 
p.  260, 


122  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  IX. 

tery  in  America,  numbering  six  ministers.  At  the  end  of 
twelve  years  the  number  of  ministers,  including  accessions 
from  New  England,  had  grown  to  seventeen.  But  it  was 
not  until  1718  that  this  migration  began  in  earnest.  As 
early  as  1725  James  Logan,  the  Scotch-Irish-Quaker  gov- 
ernor of  Pennsylvania,  speaking  in  the  spirit  of  prophecy, 
declares  that  "  it  looks  as  if  Ireland  were  to  send  all  her 
inhabitants  hither;  if  they  continue  to  come  they  will 
make  themselves  proprietors  of  the  province."  It  was  a 
broad-spread,  rich  alluvium  superimposed  upon  earlier 
strata  of  immigration,  out  of  which  was  to  spring  the 
sturdy  growth  of  American  Presbyterianism,  as  well  as  of 
other  Christian  organizations.  But  by  i  730  it  was  only 
the  turbid  and  feculent  flood  that  was  visible  to  most 
observers;  the  healthful  and  fruitful  growth  was  yet  to 
come.^ 

The  colony  of  Georgia  makes  its  appearance  among  the 
thirteen  British  colonies  in  America,  in  1733,  as  one  born 
out  of  due  time.  But  no  colony  of  all  the  thirteen  had  a 
mare  distinctly  Christian  origin  than  this.  The  founda- 
tions of  other  American  commonwealths  had  been  laid  in 
faith  and  hope,  but  the  ruling  motive  of  the  founding  of 
Georgia  was  charity,  and  that  is  the  greatest  of  these 
three.    The  spirit  which  dominated  in  the  measures  taken 

1  R.  E.  Thompson,  "The  Presbyterian  Churches,"  pp.  22-29;  S.  S. 
Green,  "  The  Scotch-Irish  in  America,"  paper  before  the  American  Antiqua- 
rian Society,  April,  1895.  "  The  great  bulk  of  the  emigrants  came  to  this 
country  at  two  distinct  periods  of  time:  the  first  from  1718  to  the  middle  of 
the  century,  the  second  from  1 771  to  1773.  ...  In  consequence  of  the 
famine  of  1740  and  1741,  it  is  stated  that  for  several  years  afterward  12,000 
emigrants  annually  left  Ulster  for  the  American  plantations  ;  while  from  1771 
to  1773  the  whole  emigration  from  Ulster  is  estimated  at  30,000,  of  whom 
10,000  are  weavers  "  (Green,  p.  7).  The  companies  that  came  to  New 
England  in  1718  were  mainly  absorbed  by  the  Congregationalism  of  that 
region  (Thompson,  p.  15).  The  church  founded  in  Boston  by  the  Irish 
Presbyterians  came  in  course  of  time  to  have  for  its  pastor  the  eminent 
William  Ellery  Channing  (Green,  p.  11).  Since  the  organization  of  the 
annual  Scotch-Irish  Congress  in  1889,  the  literature  of  this  subject  has  become 
copious.    (See  "  Bibliographical  Note  "  at  the  end  of  Mr.  Green's  pamphlet.) 


OGLETHORPE  IN  GEORGIA.  123 

for  the  beginning  of  the  enterprise  was  embodied  in  one 
of  the  most  interesting  personages  of  the  dreary  eighteenth 
century — General  James  Oglethorpe.  His  eventful  life 
covered  the  greater  part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  in 
some  of  the  leading  traits  of  his  character  and  incidents  of 
his  career  he  was  ratker  a  man  of  the  nineteenth.  At  the 
age  of  twenty-one  he  was  already  a  veteran  of  the  arm}^ 
of  Prince  Eugene,  having  served  with  honorable  distinc- 
tion on  the  staff  of  that  great  commander.  Returning  to 
England,  in  1722  he  entered  Parliament,  and  soon  attained 
what  in  that  age  was  the  almost  solitary  distinction  of  a 
social  reformer.  He  procured  the  appointment  of  a  special 
committee  to  investigate  the  condition  of  the  debtors' 
prisons ;  and  the  shocking  revelations  that  ensued  led  to  a 
beginning  of  reformation  of  the  cruel  and  barbarous  laws 
of  England  concerning  imprisonment  for  debt.  But  being 
of  the  higher  type  of  reformers,  he  was  not  content  with 
such  negative  work.  He  cherished  and  elaborated  a  scheme 
that  should  open  a  new  career  for  those  whose  ill  success 
in  life  had  subjected  them  to  the  pains  and  the  ignominy 
due  to  criminals.  It  was  primarily  for  such  as  these  that 
he  projected  the  colony  of  Georgia.  But  to  a  mind  like 
his  the  victims  of  injustice  in  every  land  were  objects  of 
practical  sympathy.  His  colony  should  be  an  asylum  for 
sufferers  from  religious  persecution  from  whatever  quarter. 
The  enterprise  was  organized  avowedly  as  a  work  of  char- 
ity. The  territory  was  vested  in  trustees,  who  should 
receive  no  pay  or  emolument  for  their  services.  Ogle- 
thorpe himself  gave  his  unpaid  labor  as  military  and 
civil  head  of  the  colony,  declining  to  receive  in  return  so 
much  as  a  settler's  allotment  of  land.  An  appropriation 
of  ten  thousand  pounds  was  made  by  Parliament  for  the 
promotion  of  the  work — the  only  government  subsidy 
ever  granted  to  an  American  colony.     With  eager  and 


124  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  ix. 

unselfish  hopes  of  a  noble  service  to  be  rendered  to 
humanity,  the  generous  soldier  embarked  with  a  picked 
company  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  emigrants,  and  on 
the  1 2th  of  February,  1733,  landed  at  the  foot  of  the  bluff 
on  which  now  stands  the  city  of  Savannah.  The  attrac- 
tions of  the  genial  climate  and  fertile  soil,  the  liberal  terms 
of  invitation,  and  the  splendid  schemes  of  profitable  in- 
dustry were  diligently  advertised,  and  came  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  that  noble  young  enthusiast,  Zinzendorf,  count 
and  Moravian  bishop,  whose  estate  of  Herrnhut  in  Lusatia 
had  become  an  asylum  for  persecuted  Christians;  and 
missionary  colonists  of  that  Moravian  church  of  which 
every  member  was  a  missionary,  and  companies  of  the  ex- 
iled Salzburgers,  the  cruelty  of  whose  sufferings  aroused 
the  universal  indignation  of  Protestant  Europe,  were  min- 
gled with  the  unfortunates  from  English  prisons  in  succes- 
sive ship-loads  of  emigrants.  One  such  ship's  company, 
among  the  earliest  to  be  added  to  the  new  colony,  included 
some  mighty  factors  in  the  future  church  history  of  Amer- 
ica and  of  the  world.  In  February,  1736,  a  company  of 
three  hundred  colonists,  with  Oglethorpe  at  their  head, 
landed  at  Savannah.  Among  them  was  a  reinforcement 
of  twenty  colonists  for  the  Moravian  settlement,  with 
Bishop  David  Nitschmann,  and  young  Charles  Wesley, 
secretary  to  the  governor,  and  his  elder  brother,  John, 
now  thirty-three  years  old,  eager  for  the  work  of  evangel- 
izing the  heathen  Indians — an  intensely  narrow,  ascetic. 
High-church  ritualist  and  sacramentarian.  The  voyage 
was  a  memorable  one  in  history.  Amid  the  terrors  of  a 
perilous  storm,  Wesley,  so  liable  to  be  lifted  up  with  the 
pride  that  apes  humility,  was  humbled  as  he  contrasted 
the  agitations  of  his  own  people  with  the  cheerful  faith 
and  composure  of  his  German  shipmates ;  and  soon  after 
the  landing  he  was  touched  with  the  primitive  simplicity 


THE    WES  LEYS  IN  GEORGIA.  I  25 

and  beauty  of  the  ordination  service  with  which  a  pastor 
was  set  over  the  Moravian  settlement  by  Bishop  Nitsch- 
mann.  During  the  twenty-two  months  of  his  service  in 
Georgia,  through  the  ascetic  toils  and  privations  which  he 
inflicted  on  himself  and  tried  to  inflict  on  others,  he  seems 
as  one  whom  the  law  has  taken  severely  in  hand  to  lead 
him  to  Christ.  It  was  after  his  return  from  America, 
among  the  Moravians,  first  at  London  and  afterward  on  a 
visit  to  Herrnhut,  that  he  was  "  taught  the  way  of  the 
Lord  more  perfectly."  ' 

The  three  shipmates,  the  Wesleys  and  Bishop  Nitsch- 
mann,  did  not  remain  long  together.  Nitschmann  soon 
returned  to  Germany  to  lead  a  new  colony  of  his  brethren 
to  Pennsylvania ;  Charles  Wesley  remained  for  four  months 
at  Frederica,  and  then  recrossed  the  ocean,  weary  of  the 
hardness  of  the  people's  hearts ;  and,  except  for  the  pain- 
ful and  humiliating  discipline  which  was  preparing  him  to 
"  take  the  whole  world  to  be  his  parish,"  it  had  been  well 
for  John  Wesley  if  he  had  returned  with  his  brother. 
Never  did  a  really  great  and  good  man  act  more  like  a 
fool  than  he  did  in  his  Georgia  mission.  The  priestly  arro- 
gance with  which  he  attempted  to  enforce  his  crotchets  of 
churchmanship  on  a  mixed  community  in  the  edge  of  the 
wilderness  culminated  at  last  in  his  hurling  the  thunder- 
bolts of  excommunication  at  a  girl  who  had  jilted  him, 
followed  by  his  slipping  away  from  the  colony  between 
two  days,  with  an  indictment  for  defamation  on  record 

1  The  beautiful  story  of  the  processional  progress  of  the  Salzburg  exiles 
across  the  continent  of  Europe  is  well  told  by  Dr.  Jacobs,  "  History  of  the 
Lutherans,"  pp.  153-159,  with  a  copious  extract  from  Bancroft,  vol.  iii., 
which  shows  that  that  learned  author  did  not  distinguish  the  Salzburgers 
from  the  Moravians.  The  account  of  the  ship's  company  in  the  storm,  in 
Dr.  Jacobs's  tenth  chapter,  is  full  of  interest.  There  is  a  pathetic  probability 
in  his  suggestion  that  in  the  hymn  "Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul,"  we  have 
Charles  Wesley's  reminiscence  of  those  scenes  of  peril  and  terror.  For  this 
episode  in  the  church  history  of  Georgia  as  seen  from  different  points  of  view, 
see  American  Church  History  Series,  vols,  iv.,  v.,  vii.,  viii. 


126  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  IX. 

against  him,  and  his  returning  to  London  to  resign  to  the 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  his  commission 
as  missionary.  Just  as  he  was  landing,  the  ship  was  setting 
sail  which  bore  to  his  deserted  field  his  old  Oxford  friend 
and  associate  in  "the  Methodist  Club,"  George  White- 
field,  then  just  beginning  the  career  of  meteoric  splendor 
which  for  thirty-two  years  dazzled  the  observers  of  both 
hemispheres.  He  landed  in  Savannah  in  May,  1738. 
This  was  the  first  of  Whitefield's  work  in  America.  But 
it  was  not  the  beginning  of  the  Great  Awakening.  For 
many  years  there  had  been  waiting  and  longing  as  of 
them  that  watch  for  the  morning.  At  Raritan  and  New 
Brunswick,  in  New  Jersey,  and  elsewhere,  there  had  been 
prelusive  gleams  of  dawn.  And  at  Northampton,  in 
December,  1734,  Jonathan  Edwards  had  seen  the  sudden 
daybreak  and  rejoiced  with  exceeding  great  joy. 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE    AMERICAN    CHURCH    ON    THE    EVE   OF  THE   GREAT 
AWAKENING A    GENERAL    VIEW. 

By  the  end  of  one  hundred  years  from  the  settlement 
of  Massachusetts  important  changes  had  come  upon  the 
chain  of  colonies  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  in  America. 
In  the  older  colonies  the  people  had  been  born  on  the  soil 
at  two  or  three  generations'  remove  from  the  original  col- 
onists, or  belonged  to  a  later  stratum  of  migration  super- 
imposed upon  the  first.  The  exhausting  toil  and  privations 
of  the  pioneer  had  been  succeeded  by  a  good  measure  of 
thrift  and  comfort.  There  were  yet  bloody  campaigns  to 
be  fought  out  against  the  ferocity  and  craft  of  savage 
enemies  wielded  by  the  strategy  of  Christian  neighbors ; 
but  the  severest  stress  of  the  Indian  wars  was  passed.  In 
different  degrees  and  according  to  curiously  diverse  types, 
the  institutions  of  a  Christian  civilization  were  becoming 
settled. 

In  the  course  of  this  hundred  years  the  political  organ- 
ization of  these  various  colonies  had  been  drawn  into  an 
approach  to  uniformity.  In  every  one  of  them,  excepting 
Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island,  the  royal  or  proprietary 
government  was  represented  by  a  governor  and  his  staff, 
appointed  from  England,  and  furnishing  a  point  of  con- 
tact which  was  in  every  case  and  all  the  time  a  point  of 
127 


I2S  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  X. 

friction  and  irritation  between  the  colony  and  the  mother 
country.  The  reckless  laxity  of  the  early  Stuart  charters, 
which  permitted  the  creation  of  practically  independent 
democratic  republics  with  churches  free  from  the  English 
hierarchy,  was  succeeded,  under  the  House  of  Orange,  by 
something  that  looked  like  a  statesmanlike  care  for  the 
prerogatives  of  the  crown  and  the  privileges  of  the  Eng- 
lish church.  Throughout  the  colonies,  at  every  viceregal 
residence,  it  was  understood  that  this  church,  even  where 
it  was  not  established  by  law,  was  the  favored  official  and 
court  church.  But  inasmuch  as  the  royal  governors  were 
officially  odious  to  the  people,  and  at  the  same  time  in 
many  cases  men  of  despicable  personal  character,  their 
influence  did  little  more  than  create  a  little  "  sect  of  the 
Herodians "  within  the  range  of  their  patronage.  But 
though  it  gave  no  real  advantage  to  the  preferred  church, 
it  was  effective  (as  in  Massachusetts)  in  breaking  down 
the  exclusive  pretensions  of  other  organizations. 

The  Massachusetts  theocracy,  so  called,  fell  with  the 
revocation  of  the  charter  by  James  II.  It  had  stood  for 
nearly  fifty  years — long  enough  to  accomplish  the  main 
end  of  that  Nationalist  principle  which  the  Puritans,  not- 
withstanding their  fraternizing  with  the  Pilgrim  Separa- 
tists, had  never  let  go.  The  organization  of  the  church 
throughout  New  England,  excepting  Rhode  Island,  had 
gone  forward  in  even  step  with  the  advance  of  population. 
Two  rules  had  with  these  colonists  the  force  of  axioms : 
first,  that  it  was  the  duty  of  every  town,  as  a  Christian 
community,  to  sustain  the  town  church ;  secondly,  that  it 
was  the  duty  of  every  citizen  of  the  town  to  contribute  to 
this  end  according  to  his  ability.  The  breaking  up  of  the 
town  church  by  schisms  and  the  shirking  of  individual 
duty  on  the  ground  of  dissent  were  alike  discountenanced, 
sometimes  by  severely  intolerant  measures.    The  ultimate 


PALL   OF    JHEOCKACr.  I  29 

collision  of  these  principles  with  the  sturdy  individualism 
that  had  been  accepted  from  the  Separatists  of  Plymouth 
was  inevitable.  It  came  when  the  "standing  order"  en- 
countered the  Baptist  and  the  Quaker  conscience.  It  came 
again  when  the  missionaries  of  the  EngHsh  estabhshed 
church,  with  singular  unconsciousness  of  the  humor  of  the 
situation,  pleaded  the  sacred  right  of  dissenting  and  the  es- 
sential injustice  of  compelling  dissenters  to  support  the 
parish  church. 1  The  protest  may  have  been  illogical,  but 
it  was  made  effective  by  "arguments  of  weight,"  backed 
by  all  the  force  of  the  British  government.  The  exclusive- 
ness  of  the  New  England  theocracies,  already  relaxed  in 
its  application  to  other  sects,  was  thenceforth  at  an  end. 
The  severity  of  church  establishment  in  New  England  was 
so  far  mitigated  as  at  last  to  put  an  actual  premium  on 
dissent.  Holding  still  that  every  citizen  is  bound  to  aid 
in  maintaining  the  institutions  of  public  worship,  it  relieved 
any  one  of  his  assessment  for  the  support  of  the  parish 
church  upon  his  filing  a  certificate  that  he  was  contribut- 
ing to  the  support  of  another  congregation,  thus  providing 
that  any  disaffection  to  the  church  of  the  town  must  be 
organized  and  active.  It  was  the  very  euthanasia  of  es- 
tablishment. But  the  state-church  and  church-state  did 
not  cease  to  be  until  they  had  accomplished  that  for  New 
England  which  has  never  been  accomplished  elsewhere  in 
America — the  dividing  of  the  settled  regions  into  definite 

1  One  is  touched  by  the  plaintive  grief  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Muirson,  who  has 
come  from  the  established  church  of  England  to  make  proselytes  from  the 
established  churches  of  Connecticut.  He  writes  to  the  "  S.  P.  G.,"  without 
a  thought  of  casting  any  reflections  upon  his  patrons:  "  It  would  require 
more  time  than  you  would  willingly  bestow  on  these  Lines,  to  express  how 
rigidly  and  severely  they  treat  our  People,  by  taking  their  Estate  by  distress 
when  they  do  not  willingly  pay  to  support  their  Ministers"  ("Digest  of 
S.  P.  G.  Records,"  p.  43).  The  pathos  of  the  situation  is  intensified  when 
we  bear  in  mind  the  relation  of  this  tender-hearted  gentleman's  own  emolu- 
ments to  the  taxes  extorted  from  the  Congregationalists  in  his  New  York 
parish. 


1 30  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  X. 

parishes,  each  with  its  church  and  its  learned  minister. 
The  democratic  autonomy  of  each  church  was  jealously- 
guarded,  and  yet  they  were  all  knit  together  by  terms  of 
loose  confederation  into  a  vital  system.  The  impracti- 
cable notion  of  a  threefold  ministry  in  each  church,  consist- 
ing of  pastor,  teacher,  and  ruling  elder,  failed  long  before 
the  first  generation  had  passed ;  but,  with  this  exception, 
it  may  justly  be  said  that  the  noble  ideal  of  the  Puritan 
fathers  of  New  England  of  a  Christian  state  in  the  New 
World,  "  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness,"  was,  at  the  end 
of  a  hundred  years  from  their  planting,  realized  with  a 
completeness  not  common  to  such  prophetic  dreams. 

So  solid  and  vital,  at  the  point  of  time  which  we  have 
assumed  (1730),  seemed  the  cohesion  of  the  "standing 
order"  in  New  England,  that  only  two  inconsiderable  de- 
fections are  visible  to  the  historian. 

The  tendency  toward  Baptist  principles  early  disclosed 
itself  among  the  colonists.  The  example  of  Roger  Wil- 
liams was  followed  by  less  notable  instances ;  the  shameful 
intolerance  with  which  some  of  these  were  treated  shows 
how  formidable  this  tendency  seemed  to  those  in  author- 
ity. But  a  more  startling  defection  appeared  about  the 
year  1650,  when  President  Dunster  of  Harvard  College, 
a  man  most  honorable  and  lovable,  signified  his  adoption 
of  the  Baptist  tenets.  The  treatment  of  him  was  ungen- 
erous, and  for  a  time  the  petty  persecutions  that  followed 
served  rather  to  discredit  the  clergy  than  really  to  hinder 
the  spread  of  Baptist  principles.  In  the  year  1718  the 
Baptist  church  of  Boston  received  fraternal  recognition 
from  the  foremost  representatives  of  the  Congregational 
clergy  of  Boston,  with  a  public  confession  of  the  wrong 
that  they  had  done.^  It  is  surprising  to  find,  after  all  this 
agitation  and  sowing  of  "  the  seed  of  the  church,"  that  in 

1  See  above,  p.  107. 


DISSENT  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  13I 

all  New  England  outside  of  Rhode  Island  there  are  in 
1730  only  six  Baptist  churches,  including  (an  honorable 
item)  two  Indian  churches  on  the  islands  of  Martha's 
Vineyard  and  Nantucket.^ 

The  other  departure  from  the  "  standing  order  "  was  at 
this  date  hardly  more  extensive.  The  early  planting  of 
Episcopalian  churches  in  Maine  and  New  Hampshire,  with 
generous  patronage  and  endowment,  had  languished  and 
died.  In  1679  there  was  no  Episcopal  minister  in  all  New 
England.  In  1702  were  begun  the  energetic  and  richly 
supported  missions  of  the  "  S.  P.  G."  At  the  end  of 
twenty-eight  years  there  were  in  Rhode  Island  four  Epis- 
copalian churches ;  in  Massachusetts,  three,  two  of  them 
in  the  city  of  Boston ;  in  Connecticut,  three. '^  But  in  the 
last-named  colony  an  incident  had  occurred,  having  appar- 
ently no  intimate  connection  with  the  "  Venerable  Soci- 
ety's "  missions,  but  charged  with  weighty,  and  on  the 
whole  beneficent,  consequences  for  the  future  of  the  king- 
dom of  Christ  in  America. 

The  incident  was  strikingly  parallel  to  that  of  seventy 
years  before,  when  the  president  of  Harvard  College  an- 
nounced his  acceptance  of  Baptist  principles.  The  day 
after  the  Yale  commencement  in  September,  1722,  a  mod- 
est and  respectful  paper  was  presented  to  the  trustees  of 
the  college,  signed  by  Rector  Timothy  Cutler  and  Tutor 
Brown  (who  constituted  the  entire  faculty  of  the  college) 
and  by  five  pastors  of  good  standing  in  the  Connecticut 
churches.  Two  other  pastors  of  note  were  named  as 
assenting  to  the  paper,  although  not  subscribing  it.  It 
seemed  a  formidable  proportion  of  the  Connecticut  clergy. 
The  purport  of  the  paper  was  to  signify  that  the  signers 

1  Newman,  "  Baptist  Churches  in  the  United  States,"  pp.  197,  198,  231. 

2  Tiffany,  "  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,"  chaps,  iv.,  v. ;  C.  F.  Adams, 
"  Three  Episodes  in  Massacliusetts  History,"  pp.  342,  62 L 


13^  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [ChaP.  x. 

were  doubtful  of  the  validity,  or  persuaded  of  the  Invalid- 
ity, of  presbyterial  as  distinguished  from  episcopal  ordina- 
tion. The  matter  was  considered  with  the  gravity  which 
it  merited,  and  a  month  later,  at  the  time  of  the  meeting 
of  the  colonial  legislature,  was  made  the  subject  of  a  public 
discussion,  presided  over  with  great  dignity  and  amenity 
by  Governor  Gurdon  Saltonstall,  formerly  pastor  of  the 
church  in  New  London.  The  result  was  that,  of  the  seven 
pastors  assenting  to  the  paper  of  the  two  college  men, 
only  two  adhered  to  them ;  but  one  of  these  two  was  that 
able  and  excellent  Samuel  Johnson,  whose  later  career  as 
president  of  King's  College  in  New  York,  as  well  as  the 
career  of  his  no  less  distinguished  son,  is  an  ornament  to 
American  history  both  of  church  and  state. 

This  secession,  small  in  number,  but  weighty  in  charac- 
ter, was  of  course  a  painful  shock  to  the  hitherto  unbroken 
unity  of  the  church  and  clergy  of  Connecticut.  But  it 
was  not  quite  like  a  thunderbolt  from  a  clear  sky.  It  had 
been  immediately  preceded  by  not  a  Httle  conference  and 
correspondence  with  Connecticut  pastors  on  the  one  hand, 
and  on  the  other  hand  with  representatives  of  the  powerful 
and  wealthy  Propagation  Society,  on  the  question  of  sup- 
port to  be  received  from  England  for  those  who  should  se- 
cede. Its  prior  antecedents  reached  farther  back  into  his- 
tory. The  Baptist  convictions  of  the  president  of  Harvard 
in  1650  were  not  more  clearly  in  line  with  the  individual- 
ism of  the  Plymouth  Separatists  than  the  scruples  of  the 
rector  of  Yale  in  1722  were  in  line  with  the  Nationalism 
of  Higginson  and  Winthrop.  This  sentiment,  especially 
strong  in  Connecticut,  had  given  rise  to  much  study  as  to 
the  best  form  of  a  colonial  church  constitution ;  and  the 
results  of  this  had  recently  been  embodied  (in  1 708)  in  the 
mildly  classical  system  of  the  Saybrook  Platform.  The 
filial  love  of  the  Puritan  colonists   toward  the  mothei^ 


EPISCOPALIANS  IN  NEW  ENGLAND.  1 33 

church  of  England  was  by  no  means  extinct  in  the  third 
generation.  Alongside  of  the  inevitable  repugnance  felt 
and  manifested  toward  the  arrogance,  insolence,  and  v'io- 
lence  with  which  the  claims  of  the  Episcopal  Church  were 
commended  by  royal  governors  and  their  attaches  and  by 
some  of  the  imported  missionaries,  there  is  ample  evidence 
of  kindly  and  fraternal  feeling,  far  beyond  what  might  have 
been  expected,  on  the  part  of  the  New  England  clergy  to- 
ward the  representatives  of  the  Church  of  England.  The 
first  missionaries  of  the  "  Venerable  Society,"  Keith  and 
Talbot,  arriving  in  New  England  in  1702,  met  with  wel- 
come from  some  of  the  ministers,  who  "  both  hospitably 
entertained  us  in  their  houses  and  requested  us  to  preach 
in  their  congregations,  which  accordingly  we  did,  and  re- 
ceived great  thanks  both  from  the  ministers  and  people."^ 
One  of  these  hospitable  pastors  was  the  Rev.  Gurdon 
Saltonstall,  of  New  London,  who  twenty  years  later,  as 
governor  of  the  colony,  presided  at  the  debate  which  fol- 
lowed upon  the  demission  of  Rector  Cutler. 

The  immediate  results  of  what  had  been  expected  to 
lead  off  a  large  defection  from  the  colonial  clergy  were 
numerically  insignificant;  but  very  far  from  insignificant 
was  the  fact  that  in  Connecticut  a  sincere  and  spontaneous 
movement  toward  the  Episcopal  Church  had  arisen  among 
men  honored  and  beloved,  whose  ecclesiastical  views  were 
not  tainted  with  self-seeking  or  servility  or  with  an  un- 
patriotic shame  for  their  colonial  home  and  sympathy  with 
its  political  enemies.  Elsewhere  in  New  England,  and 
largely  in  Connecticut  also,  the  Episcopal  Church  in  its 
beginnings  was  handicapped  with  a  dead-weight  of  super- 
cilious and  odious  Toryism.  The  example  of  a  man  like 
Johnson  showed  that  one  might  become  an  Episcopalian 
without  ceasing  to  be  a  patriotic  American  and  without 

1  "  Digest  of  S.  p.  G.,"  p.  42. 


134  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  X. 

holding  himself  aloof  from  the  fellowship  of  good  men. 
The  conference  in  Yale  College  library,  September  13, 
1722,  rather  than  the  planting  of  a  system  of  exotic  mis- 
sions, marks  the  true  epoch  from  which  to  date  the  prog- 
ress of  a  genuinely  American  Episcopal  Church.^ 

Crossing  the  recently  settled  boundary  line  into  New 
York,  not  yet  risen  to  rank  with  the  foremost  colonies,  we 
find  in  1730  a  deepening  of  the  early  character,  which  had 
marked  that  colony,  of  wide  diversity  among  the  Chris- 
tian people  in  point  of  race,  language,  doctrinal  opinion, 
and  ecclesiastical  connection. 

The  ancient  Dutch  church,  rallying  from  its  almost 
asphyxia,  had  begun  not  only  to  receive  new  life,  but, 
under  the  fervid  spiritual  influence  of  Domine  Freling- 
huysen,  to  "  have  it  more  abundantly  "  and  to  become  a 
means  of  quickening  to  other  communions.  It  was  bear- 
ing fruit,  but  its  fruit  had  not  seed  within  itself  after  its 
kind.  It  continued  to  sufTer,  in  common  with  some  other 
imported  church  systems,  from  depending  on  a  trans- 
atlantic hierarchy  for  the  succession  of  its  ministry.  The 
supply  of  imported  ministers  continued  to  be  miserably 
inadequate  to  the  need.  In  the  first  four  decades  of  the 
century  the  number  of  its  congregations  more  than  dou- 
bled, rising  to  a  total  of  sixty-five  in  New  York  and  New 
Jersey ;  and  for  these  sixty-five  congregations  there  were 
nineteen  ministers,  almost  all  of  them  from  Europe.  This 
body  of  churches,  so  inadequately  manned,  was  still  further 
limited  in  its  activities  by  the  continually  contracting  bar- 
rier of  the  Dutch  language. 

The  English  church,  enjoying  "  the  prestige  of  royal 
favor  and  princely  munificence,"  suffered  also  the  draw- 

1  Tiffany,  chap.  v.  For  a  full  account  of  these  beginnings  in  Connecticut 
in  their  historical  relations,  see  L.  Bacon  on  "  The  Episcopal  Church  in  Con- 
necticut" ("  New  Englander,"  vol.  xxv.,  pp.  283-329). 


DIVERSITIES  IX  XEW    YORK.  135 

backs  Incidental  to  these  advantages — the  odium  attend- 
ing the  unjust  and  despotic  measures  resorted  to  for  its 
advancement,  the  vile  character  of  royal  officials,  who  con- 
doned their  private  vices  by  a  more  ostentatious  zeal  for 
their  official  church,  and  the  well-founded  popular  suspi- 
cion of  its  pervading  disloyalty  to  the  interests  and  the 
liberties  of  the  colonies  in  their  antagonism  to  the  en- 
croachments of  the  British  government.  It  was  repre- 
sented by  one  congregation  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and 
perhaps  a  dozen  others  throughout  the  colony.^  It  is  to 
the  honor  of  the  ministers  of  this  church  that  it  succeeded 
in  so  good  a  measure  in  triumphing  over  its  "  advantages." 
The  early  pastors  of  Trinity  Church  adorned  their  doctrine 
and  their  confession,  and  one  such  example  as  that  of  the 
Rev.  Thoroughgood  Moor  did  much  to  redeem  the  char- 
acter of  the  church  from  the  disgrace  cast  upon  it  by  the 
lives  of  its  patrons.  This  faithful  missionary  had  the  sig- 
nal honor  of  being  imprisoned  by  the  dirty  but  zealous 
Lord  Cornbury  (own  cousin  to  her  Majesty  the  Queen, 
and  afterward  Earl  of  Clarendon),  of  whom  he  had  said, 
what  everybody  knew,  that  he  "  deserved  to  be  excom- 
municated " ;  and  he  had  further  oflfended  by  refusing  the 
communion  to  the  lieutenant-governor,  "  upon  the  account 
of  some  debauch  and  abominable  swearing."  ^  There  was 
surely  some  vigorous  spiritual  vitality  in  a  religious  body 
which  could  survive  the  patronizing  of  a  succession  of  such 
creatures  as  Cornbury  and  his  crew  of  extortioners  and 
profligates. 

A  third  element  in  the  early  Christianity  of  New  York 

1  There  were  on  duty  in  New  York  in  1730,  besides  the  minister  of  Trinity 
Church,  ten  missionaries  of  the  "  S.  P.  G.,"  including  several  employed  spe- 
cially among  the  Indians  and  the  negroes.  Fifteen  years  later  there  were 
reported  to  the  "  Venerable  Society  "  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey  twenty- 
two  churches  ("  Digest  of  S.  P.  G.,"  pp.  855,  856;  Tiffany,  p.  178). 

2  "  Digest  of  S.  P.  G.,"  p.  68  and  note. 


136  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY,  [Chap.  x. 

was  the  Presbyterians,  These  were  represented,  at  the 
opening  of  the  eighteenth  century,  by  that  forerunner 
of  the  Scotch-Irish  immigration,  Francis  Makemie.  The 
arrest  and  imprisonment  of  Makemie  in  1706,  under  the 
authority  of  Lord  Cornbury,  for  the  offense  of  preaching 
the  gospel  without  a  license  from  the  government,  his 
sturdy  defense  and  his  acquittal,  make  an  epoch  in  the 
history  of  religious  liberty  in  America,  and  a  perceptible 
step  in  the  direction  of  American  political  liberty  and 
independence. 

The  immense  volume  and  strength  of  the  Scotch-Irish 
immigration  had  hardly  begun  to  be  perceptible  in  New 
York  as  early  as  1730.  The  total  strength  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  in  1705  was  organized  in  Philadelphia  into 
a  solitary  presbytery  containing  six  ministers.  In  171 7, 
the  number  having  grown  to  seventeen,  the  one  presbytery 
was  divided  into  four,  which  constituted  a  synod ;  and  one 
of  the  four  was  the  presbytery  of  New  York  and  New 
Jersey.  But  it  was  observed,  at  least  it  might  have  been 
observed,  that  the  growing  Presbyterianism  of  this  north- 
ernmost region  was  recruited  mainly  from  old  England 
and  from  New  England — a  fact  on  which  were  to  depend 
important  consequences  in  later  ecclesiastical  history. 

The  chief  increment  of  the  presbytery  of  New  York  and 
New  Jersey  was  in  three  parts,  each  of  them  planted  from 
New  England.  The  churches  founded  from  New  Haven 
Colony  in  the  neighborhood  of  Newark  and  Elizabeth- 
town,  and  the  churches  founded  by  Connecticut  settlers 
on  Long  Island  when  this  was  included  in  the  jurisdiction 
of  Connecticut,  easily  and  without  serious  objection  con- 
formed their  organization  to  the  Presbyterian  order.  The 
first  wave  of  the  perennial  westward  migration  of  the  New 
Englanders,  as  it  flowed  over  the  hills  from  the  valley  of 
the  Housatonic  into  the  valley  of  the  Hudson,  was  ob- 


NEIV  EXG LANDERS  MOVING    WEST.  137 

served  by  Domine  Selyns,  away  back  in  1696,  to  be  at- 
tended by  many  preachers  educated  at  Harvard  College. 1 
But  the  churches  which  they  founded  grew  into  the  type, 
not  of  Cambridge  nor  of  Saybrook,  but  of  Westminster. 

The  facility  with  which  the  New  England  Christians, 
moving  westward  or  southwestward  from  their  cold  north- 
eastern corner  of  the  country,  have  commonly  consented 
to  forego  their  cherished  usages  and  traditions  of  church 
order  and  accept  those  in  use  in  their  new  homes,  and 
especially  their  readiness  in  conforming  to  the  Presbyterian 
polity,  has  been  a  subject  of  undue  lamentation  and  regret 
to  many  who  have  lacked  the  faculty  of  recognizing  in  it 
one  of  the  highest  honors  of  the  New  England  church. 
But  whether  approved  or  condemned,  a  fact  so  unusual  in 
church  history,  and  especially  in  the  history  of  the  Ameri- 
can church,  is  entitled  to  some  study,  i.  It  is  to  be  ex- 
plained in  part,  but  not  altogether,  by  the  high  motive  of 
a  willingness  to  sacrifice  personal  preferences,  habits,  and 
convictions  of  judgment,  on  matters  not  of  primary  im- 
portance, to  the  greater  general  good  of  the  community. 
2.  The  Presbyterian  polity  is  the  logical  expression  of  that 
Nationalist  principle  which  was  cherished  by  many  of  the 
Puritan  fathers,  which  contended  at  the  birth  of  New 
England  with  the  mere  Independency  of  the  Pilgrims,  and 
which  found  an  imperfect  embodiment  in  the  platforms 
of  Cambridge  and  Saybrook.  The  New  England  fathers 
in  general,  before  their  views  suffered  a  sea-change  in  the 
course  of  their  migrations,  were  Episcopalians  and  Presby- 
terians rather  than  Congregationalists ;  and  if,  in  the  course 
of  this  history,  we  shall  find  many  in  their  later  genera- 
tions conforming  to  a  mitigated  form  of  the  Westminster 
polity,  or  to  a  liberalized  and  Americanized  Episcopal 
Church,  instead  of  finding  this  to  be  a  degeneration,  we 
1  Corwin,  "  Reformed  (Dutch)  Church,"  p.  ii§. 


138  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  x, 

shall  do  well  to  ask  whether  It  is  not  rather  a  reversion  to 
type.  3.  Those  who  grow  up  in  a  solidly  united  Christian 
community  are  in  a  fair  way  to  be  trained  in  the  simplicity 
of  the  gospel,  and  not  in  any  specialties  of  controversy 
with  contending  or  competing  sects.  Members  of  the 
parish  churches  of  New  England  going  west  had  an  advan- 
tage above  most  others,  in  that  they  could  go  simply  as 
representatives  of  the  church  of  Christ,  and  not  of  a  sect 
of  the  church,  or  of  one  side  of  some  controversy  in  which 
they  had  never  had  occasion  to  interest  themselves.  4. 
The  principle  of  congregational  independency,  not  so 
much  inculcated  as  acted  on  in  New  England,  carries  with 
it  the  corollary  that  a  congregation  may  be  Presbyterian 
or  Episcopalian  or  Methodist,  if  it  judges  best,  without 
thereby  giving  the  individual  Christian  any  justification 
for  secession  or  schism.  5.  The  change,  in  the  westward 
movement  of  Christian  civilization,  from  the  congrega- 
tional order  to  the  classical,  coincides  with  the  change  in 
the  frame  of  civil  polity  from  town  government  to  county 
government  In  the  beginning  the  civil  state  in  New 
England  was  framed  after  the  model  of  the  church.^  It 
is  in  accordance  with  the  common  course  of  church  history 
that  when  the  people  were  transported  from  the  midst  of 
pure  democracies  to  the  midst  of  representative  republics 
their  church  institutions  should  take  on  the  character  of  the 
environment. 

The  other  factors  of  the  religious  life  of  New  York  re- 
quire only  brief  mention. 

There  were  considerable  Quaker  communities,  especially 

1  "  Mr.  Hooker  did  often  quote  a  saying  out  of  Mr.  Cartwright,  that  no 
man  fashioneth  his  house  to  his  hangings,  but  his  hangings  to  his  house.  It 
is  better  that  the  commonwealth  be  fashioned  to  the  setting  forth  of  God's 
house,  which  is  his  church,  than  to  accommodate  the  church  frame  to  the 
civil  state"  (.John  Cotton,  quoted  by  L.  Bacon,  "  Historical  Discourses," 
p.  18). 


THE    CHRISTIANS  OF  NEW  YORK.  1 39 

on  western  Long  Island,  in  Flushing  and  its  neighborhood. 
But  before  the  year  1730  the  fervid  and  violent  and  won- 
derfully brief  early  enthusiasm  of  this  Society  had  long 
been  waning,  and  the  Society,  winning  no  accessions  and 
suffering  frequent  losses  in  its  membership,  was  lapsing  into 
that  "  middle  age  of  Quakerism  "  ^  in  which  it  made  itself 
felt  in  the  life  of  the  people  through  its  almost  passive,  but 
yet  effective,  protests  against  popular  wrongs. 

Inconsiderable  in  number,  but  of  the  noblest  quality, 
was  the  immigration  of  French  Huguenots,  which  just  be- 
fore and  just  after  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
brought  to  New  York  and  its  neighborhood  a  half-dozen 
congregations,  accompanied  by  pastors  whose  learning, 
piety,  and  devotion  to  the  work  of  Christ  were  worthy  of 
that  school  of  martyrdom  in  which  they  had  been  trained. 
They  were  not  numerous  enough,  nor  compactly  enough 
settled,  to  maintain  their  own  language  in  use,  and  soon 
became  merged,  some  in  the  Dutch  church  and  some  in 
the  English.  Some  of  their  leading  pastors  accepted 
salaries  from  the  Propagation  Society,  tendered  to  them 
on  condition  of  their  accepting  the  ordination  and  conform- 
ing to  the  ritual  of  the  English  church.  The  French  Re- 
formed Church  does  not  appear  organically  in  the  later 
history  of  the  colony,  but  the  history  of  the  State  and  of 
the  nation  is  never  largely  written  without  commemorating, 
by  the  record  of  family  names  made  illustrious  in  every 
department  of  honorable  activity,  the  rich  contribution 
made  to  the  American  church  and  nation  by  the  cruel 
bigotry  and  the  poHtical  fatuity  of  Louis  XIV.^ 

The  German  element  in  the  religious  life  of  New  York, 
at  the  period  under  consideration,  was  of  even  less  his- 
torical importance.     The  political  philanthropy  of  Queen 

1  Thomas,  "  The  Society  of  Friends,"  p.  239. 

2  Corwin,  "  Reformed  (Dutch)  Church,"  pp.  77,  78,  173. 


I40  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  x. 

Anne's  government,  with  a  distinct  understanding  between 
the  right  hand  and  the  left,  took  active  measures  to  pro- 
mote the  migration  of  Protestant  refugees  from  all  parts 
of  Germany  to  the  English  colonies  in  America.  In  the 
year  1 709  a  great  company  of  these  unhappy  exiles,  com- 
monly called  "  poor  Palatines  "  from  the  desolated  region 
whence  many  of  them  had  been  driven  out,  were  dropped, 
helpless  and  friendless,  in  the  wilderness  of  Schoharie 
County,  and  found  themselves  there  practically  in  a  state 
of  slavery  through  their  ignorance  of  the  country  and  its 
language.  There  were  few  to  care  for  their  souls.  The 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  was  promptly 
in  the  field,  with  its  diligent  missionaries  and  its  ignoble 
poHcy  of  doing  the  work  of  Christ  and  humanity  with  a 
shrewd  eye  to  the  main  chance  of  making  proselytes  to  its 
party.-^  With  a  tardiness  which  it  is  difficult  not  to  speak 
of  as  characteristic,  after  the  lapse  of  twenty-one  years  the 
classis  of  Amsterdam  recognized  its  responsibility  for  this 
multitude  of  wandering  sheep;  and  at  last,  in  1793,  the 
German  Reformed  Church  had  so  far  emancipated  itself 
from  its  bondage  to  the  old-country  hierarchy  as  to  as- 
sume, almost  a  century  too  late,  the  cure  of  these  poor 
souls.  But  this  migration  added  Httle  to  the  rehgious  life 
of  the  New  York  Colony,  except  a  new  element  of  diversity 
to  a  people  already  sufficiently  heterogeneous.  The  greater 
part  of  these  few  thousands  gladly  found  their  way  to  the 
more  hospitable  colony  of  Pennsylvania,  leaving  traces  of 
themselves  in  family  names  scattered  here  and  there,  and 
in  certain  local  names,  like  that  of  Palatine  Bridge. 

The  general  impression  left  on  the  mind  by  this  survey 
of  the  Christian  people  of  New  York  in  1730  is  of  a  mass 

1  Illustrations  of  the  sordid  sectarianism  of  the  "Venerable  Society's" 
operations  are  painfully  frequent  in  the  pages  of  the  "  Digest  of  the  S.  P.  G." 
See  especially  on  this  particular  case  the  action  respecting  Messrs.  Kocher- 
thal,  Ehlig,  and  Beyse  (p.  61). 


THE   CHRISTIANS   OF  NEW  JERSEY.  141 

of  almost  hopelessly  incongruous  materials,  out  of  which 
the  brooding  Spirit  of  God  shall  by  and  by  bring  forth  the 
unity  of  a  new  creation. 

The  population  of  the  two  Jerseys  continued  to  bear  the 
character  impressed  on  it  by  the  original  colonization. 
West  Jersey  was  predominantly  Quaker;  East  Jersey 
showed  in  its  institutions  of  church  and  school  the  marks 
made  upon  it  by  the  mingling  of  Scotch  and  Yankee,  But 
there  was  one  point  at  which  influences  had  centered 
which  were  to  make  New  Jersey  the  seed-plot  of  a  new 
growth  of  church  life  for  the  continent. 

The  intolerable  tyranny  of  Lord  Cornbury  in  New  York, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  century,  had  driven  many  of  the 
Dutch  Christians  of  that  colony  across  the  Hudson.  The 
languishing  vine  throve  by  transplanting.  In  the  congenial 
neighborhood  of  the  Calvinists  of  Scotland  and  New  Eng- 
land the  cluster  of  churches  in  the  region  of  New  Bruns- 
wick came  to  be  known  as  "  the  garden  of  the  Dutch 
church."  To  this  region,  bearing  a  name  destined  to 
great  honor  in  American  church  history,  came  from  Hol- 
land, in  1720,  Domine  Theodore  J.  Frehnghuysen.  The 
fervor  and  earnestness  of  his  preaching,  unwonted  in 
that  age,  wakened  a  religious  feeling  in  his  own  con- 
gregation, which  overflowed  the  limits  of  a  single  parish 
and  became  as  one  of  the  streams  that  make  glad  the  city 
of  God. 

In  the  year  1 7 1 8  there  arrived  at  the  port  of  Philadel- 
phia an  Irishman,  William  Tennent,  with  his  four  sons,  the 
eldest  a  boy  of  fifteen.  He  was  not  a  Scotch-Irishman, 
but  an  English-Irishman — a  clergyman  of  the  established 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of  Ireland.  He  lost  no  time 
in  connecting  himself  with  the  Presbyterian  synod  of 
Philadelphia,  and  after  a  few  years  of  pastoral  service  in 


142  AMERICAN  CHRIS! lANlTY.  [Chap.  X. 

the  colony  of  New  York  became  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian 
church  at  Neshaminy,  in  Pennsylvania,  twenty  miles  north 
of  Philadelphia.  Here  his  zeal  for  Christian  education 
moved  him  to  begin  a  school,  which,  called  from  the 
humble  building  in  which  it  was  held,  became  famous  in 
American  Presbyterian  history  as  the  Log  College.  Here 
were  educated  many  men  who  became  eminent  in  the 
ministry  of  the  gospel,  and  among  them  the  four  boys  who 
had  come  with  their  father  from  Ireland.  Gilbert,  the 
eldest  and  most  distinguished  of  them,  came  in  1727,  from 
his  temporary  position  as  tutor  in  the  Log  College,  to  be 
pastor  to  the  Presbyterian  church  in  New  Brunswick, 
where  Frelinghuysen,  in  the  face  of  opposition  from  his 
own  brethren  in  the  ministry,  had  for  seven  years  pursued 
his  deeply  spiritual  and  fruitful  work  as  pastor  to  the  Dutch 
church.  Whatever  debate  there  may  be  over  the  question 
of  an  official  and  tactual  succession  in  the  church,  the  ex- 
istence of  a  vital  and  spiritual  succession,  binding  "  the 
generations  each  to  each,"  need  not  be  disputed  by  any. 
Sometimes,  as  here,  the  succession  is  distinctly  traceable. 
Gilbert  Tennent  was  own  son  in  the  ministry  to  Theodore 
Frelinghuysen  as  truly  as  Timothy  to  Paul,  but  he  became 
spiritual  father  to  a  great  multitude. 

In  the  year  1730  the  total  population  of  Pennsylvania 
was  estimated  by  Governor  Gordon  at  forty-nine  thousahd. 
la  the  less  than  fifty  years  since  the  colony  was  settled  it 
had  outstripped  all  the  older  colonies,  and  Philadelphia,  its 
chief  town,  continued  to  be  by  far  the  most  important  port 
for  the  landing  of  immigrants.  The  original  Quaker  in- 
fluence was  still  dominant  in  the  colony,  but  the  very  large 
majority  of  the  population  was  German ;  and  presently  the 
Quakers  were  to  find  their  political  supremacy  departing, 
and  were  to  acquiesce  in  the  change  by  abdicating  political 


CHRISTIANITY  IN  PENNSYLVANIA.  I43 

preferment.'  The  religious  influence  of  the  Society  of 
P'riends  continued  to  be  potent  and  in  many  respects  most 
salutary.  But  the  exceptional  growth  and  prosperity  of 
the  colony  was  attended  with  a  vast "  unearned  increment  " 
of  wealth  to  the  first  settlers,  and  the  maxim,  "  Religio 
peperit  divitias,  et  mater  devorata  est  a  prole,"-  received 
one  of  the  most  striking  illustrations  in  all  history.  So 
speedily  the  Society  had  entered  on  its  Middle  Age;'  the 
most  violent  of  protests  against  formalism  had  begun  to 
congeal  into  a  precise  and  sometimes  frivolous  system  of 
formalities.  But  the  lasting  impress  made  on  the  legisla- 
tion of  the  colony  by  Penn  and  his  contemporaries  is  a 
monument  of  their  wise  and  Christian  statesmanship.  Up 
to  their  time  the  most  humane  penal  codes  in  Christen- 
dom were  those  of  New  England,  founded  on  the  Mosaic 
law.  But  even  in  these,  and  still  more  in  the  application 
of  them,  there  were  traces  of  that  widely  prevalent  feeling 
that  punishment  is  society's  bitter  and  malignant  revenge 
on  the  criminal.  The  penal  code  and  the  prison  discipline  of 
Pennsylvania  became  an  object  of  admiring  study  for  social 
reformers  the  world  over,  and  marked  a  long  stage  in  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  city  of  Philadelphia 
early  took  the  lead  of  American  towns,  not  only  in  size,  but 
in  its  public  charities  and  its  cultivation  of  humane  arts. 

Notwithstanding  these  eminent  honors,  there  is  much 
in  the  later  history  of  the  great  commonwealth  in  which 
Quakerism  held  dominion  for  the  greater  part  of  a  century 
to  reflect  doubt  on  the  fitness  of  that  form  of  Christianity 
for  conducting  the  affairs,  either  civil  or  religious,  of  a 
great  community. 

1  S.  G.  Fisher,  "  The  Making  of  Pennsylvania,"  p.  125 ;  Thomas,  "  The 
Society  of  Friends,"  p.  235. 

2  "  Religion  gave  birth  to  wealth,  and  was  devoured  by  her  own  offspring." 
The  aphorism  is  ascribed  to  Lord  Falkland. 

3  Thomas,  "  The  Society  of  Friends,"  p.  236. 


144  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  x. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  personal  duty  of  non-resistance 
of  evil,  as  inculcated  in  the  New  Testament,  that  conflicts 
with  the  functions  of  the  civil  governor — even  the  function 
of  bearing  the  sword  as  God's  minister.  Rather,  each  of 
these  is  the  complement  and  counterpart  of  the  other. 
Among  the  early  colonial  governors  no  man  wielded  the 
sword  of  the  ruler  more  effectively  than  the  Quaker  Arch- 
dale  in  the  Carolinas.  It  is  when  this  law  of  personal  duty 
is  assumed  as  the  principle  of  public  government  that  the 
order  of  society  is  inverted,  and  the  function  of  the  magis- 
trate is  inevitably  taken  up  by  the  individual,  and  the  old 
wilderness  law  of  blood-revenge  is  reinstituted.  The  legis- 
lation of  William  Penn  involved  no  abdication  of  the  power 
of  the  sword  by  the  civil  governor.  The  enactment, 
however  sparing,  of  capital  laws  conceded  by  implication 
every  point  that  is  claimed  by  Christian  moralists  in  justi- 
fication of  war.  But  it  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  the 
tendency  of  Quaker  politics  so  to  conduct  civil  government 
as  that  it  shall  "  resist  not  evil  "  is  responsible  for  some  of 
the  strange  paradoxes  in  the  later  history  of  Pennsylvania. 
The  commonwealth  was  founded  in  good  faith  on  principles 
of  mutual  good  will  with  the  Indians  and  tender  regard 
for  Indian  rights,  of  religious  liberty  and  interconfessional 
amity,  and  of  a  permanent  peace  policy.  Its  history  has 
been  characterized,  beyond  that  of  other  States,  by  foul 
play  toward  the  Indians  and  protracted  Indian  wars,  by 
acrimonious  and  sometimes  bloody  sectarian  conflicts,  by 
obstinate  insurrections  against  pubHc  order,^  and  by  cruel 
and  exterminating  war  upon  honest  settlers,  founded  on  a 
mere  open  question  of  title  to  territory.^ 

i  Fisher,  "  The  Making  of  Pennsylvania,"  pp.  i66-i6g,  174. 

2  It  is  not  easy  to  define  the  peculiarity  of  Penn's  Indian  policy.  It  is 
vulgarly  referred  to  as  if  it  consisted  in  just  dealing,  especially  in  not  taking 
their  land  except  by  fair  purchase ;  and  the  "  Shackamaxon  Treaty,"  of  which 
nothing  is  known  except  by  vague  report  and  tradition,  is  spoken  of  as  some 


QC/JA'£AVSA/  AS  A    CllVRCH.  I45 

The  failure  of  Quakerism  is  even  more  conspicuous  con- 
sidered as  a  church  discipHne.  There  is  a  charm  as  of 
apostoHc  simphcity  and  beauty  in  its  unassuming  hierarchy 
of  weekly,  monthly,  quarterly,  and  yearly  meetings,  cor- 
responding by  epistles  and  by  the  visits  of  traveling 
evangelists,  which  realizes  the  type  of  the  primitive  church 
presented  in  "The  Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles." 
But  it  was  never  able  to  outgrow,  in  the  large  and  free 
field  to  which  it  was  transplanted,  the  defects  incident  to 
its  origin  in  a  protest  and  a  schism.  It  never  learned  to 
commend  itself  to  men  as  a  church  for  all  Christians,  and 
never  ceased  to  be,  even  in  its  own  consciousness,  a  coterie 
of  specialists.  Penn,  to  be  sure,  in  his  youthful  overzeal, 
had  claimed  exclusive  and  universal  rights  for  Quakerism 
as  "  the  alone  good  way  of  life  and  salvation,"  all  religions, 
faiths,  and  worships  besides  being  "  in  the  darkness  of 
apostasy."^     But  after  the  abatement  of  that  wonderful 

thing  quite  unprecedented  in  this  respect.     The  fact  is  that  this  measure  of 

virtue  was  common  to  the  English  colonists  generally,  and  eminently  to  the 

New  England  colonists.     A  good  example  of  the  ordinary  cant  of  historical 

writers  on  this  subject  is  found  in  "  The  Making  of  Pennsylvania,"  p.  238. 

The  writer  says  of  the  Connecticut  Puritans:  "They  occupied  the  land  by 

squatter  sovereignty.   ...   It  seemed  like  a  pleasant  place ;  they  wanted  it. 

They  were  the  saints,  and  the  saints,  as  we  all  know,  shall  inherit  the  earth. 

.   .   .   Having  originally  acquired  their  land  simply  by  taking  it,  .   .  .  they 

(  ;  naturally  grew  up  with  rather  liberal  views  as  to  their  right  to  any  additional 

i  territory  that  pleased  their  fancy."     No  purchase  by  Penn  was  made  with 

j  more  scrupulous  regard  to  the  rights  of  the  Indians  than  the  purchases  by 

'  which  the  settlers  of  Connecticut  acquired  title  to  their  lands ;  but  I  know  of 

!  no  New  England  precedent  for  the  somewhat  Punic  piece  of  sharp  practice 

'  I  by  which  the  metes  and  bounds  of  one  of  the  Pennsylvania  purchases  were 

I  I  laid  down. 

The  long  exemption  of  Pennsylvania  from  trouble  with  the  Indians  seems 
to  be  due  to  the  fact  that  an  exceptionally  mild,  considerate,  and  conscientious 
body  of  settlers  was  confronted  with  a  tribe  of  savages  thoroughly  subdued 
and  cowed  in  recent  conflicts  with  enemies  both  red  and  white.     It  seems 
!  clear,  also,  that  the  exceptional  ferocity  of  the  forty  years  of  uninterrupted 

war  with  the  Indians  that  ensued  was  due  in  part  to  the  long  dereliction  by 
I  the  Quaker  government  of  its  duty  of  protecting  its  citizens  and  punishing 

\  j  murder,  robbery,  and  arson  when  committed  by  its  copper-colored  subjects. 

1  Penn's  "Truth  Exalted"  (quoted  in  "Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  vol. 
xviii.,  p.  493). 


146  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  x. 

first  fervor  which  within  a  lifetime  carried  "  its  line  into 
all  the  earth,  and  its  words  to  the  ends  of  the  world,"  it 
was  impossible  to  hold  it  to  this  pitch.  Claiming  no  divine 
right  to  all  men's  allegiance,  it  felt  no  duty  of  opening  the 
door  to  all  men's  access.  It  was  free  to  exclude  from  the 
meeting  on  arbitrary  and  even  on  frivolous  grounds.  As 
zeal  decayed,  the  energies  of  the  Society  were  mainly 
shown  in  protesting  and  excluding  and  expelling.  God's 
husbandry  does  not  prosper  when  his  servants  are  over- 
earnest  in  rooting  up  tares.  The  course  of  the  Society  of 
Friends  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  suicidal.  It  held 
a  noble  opportunity  of  acting  as  pastor  to  a  great  common- 
wealth. It  missed  this  great  opportunity,  for  which  it  was 
perhaps  constitutionally  disqualified,  and  devoted  itself  to 
edifying  its  own  members  and  guarding  its  own  purity. 
So  it  was  that,  saving  its  soul,  it  lost  it.  The  vineyard 
must  be  taken  away  from  it. 

And  there  were  no  other  husbandmen  to  take  the  vine- 
yard. The  petty  German  sects,  representing  so  large  a 
part  of  the  population,  were  isolated  by  their  language  and 
habits.  The  Lutherans  and  the  Reformed,  trained  in 
established  churches  to  the  methods  and  responsibilities  of 
parish  work,  were  not  yet  represented  by  any  organization. 
The  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterian  immigration  was  pouring  in 
at  Philadelphia  like  a  flood,  sometimes  whole  parishes  at 
once,  each  bringing  its  own  pastor ;  and  it  left  large  traces 
of  itself  in  the  eastern  counties  of  Pennsylvania,  while  it 
rushed  to  the  western  frontier  and  poured  itself  like  a 
freshet  southwesterly  through  the  valleys  of  the  Blue  Ridge 
and  the  AUeghanies.  But  the  Presbyterian  churches  of 
eastern  Pennsylvania,  even  as  reinforced  from  England 
and  New  England,  were  neither  many  nor  strong ;  the  Bap- 
tists were  feebler  yet,  although  both  these  bodies  were 
giving  signs  of  the  strength  they  were  both  about  to  de- 


CHRISTIANITY  IX   THE  SOUTH.  I47 

velop.^  The  Episcopalians  had  one  strong  and  rapidly- 
growing  church  in  Philadelphia,  and  a  few  languishing 
missions  in  country  towns  sustained  by  gifts  from  England. 
There  were  as  yet  no  Methodists. 

Crossing  the  boundary  line  from  Pennsylvania  into 
Maryland — the  line  destined  to  become  famous  in  political 
history  as  Mason  and  Dixon's — we  come  to  the  four 
Southern  colonies,  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  the  two  Caro- 
hnas.  Georgia  in  1730  has  not  yet  begun  to  be.  All 
these  have  strongly  marked  characteristics  in  common, 
which  determine  in  advance  the  character  of  their  religious 
history.  They  are  not  peculiar  in  being  slave  colonies ; 
there  is  no  colony  North  or  South  in  which  slaves  are  not 
held  under  sanction  of  law.  Georgia,  in  its  early  years,  is 
to  have  the  solitary  honor  of  being  an  antislavery  and 
prohibitionist  colony.  But  the  four  earlier  Southern  colo- 
nies are  unlike'  their  Northern  neighbors  in  this,  that  the 
institution  of  slavery  dominates  their  whole  social  life. 
The  unit  of  the  social  organism  is  not  the  town,  for  there 
are  no  towns ;  it  is  the  plantation.  In  a  population  thus 
dispersed  over  vast  tracts  of  territory,  schools  and  churches 
are  maintained  with  difficulty,  or  not  maintained  at  all. 
Systems  of  primary  and  secondary  schools  are  impractica- 
ble, and,  for  want  of  these,  institutions  of  higher  education 
either  languish  or  are  never  begun.  A  consequent  tend- 
ency, which,  happily,  there  were  many  influences  to  resist, 
was  for  this  townless  population  to  settle  down  into  the 
condition  of  those  who,  in  distinction  from  the  early  Chris- 
tians, came  to  be  called /«^««/,  or  "  men  of  the  hamlets," 
and  Heiden,  or  *'  men  of  the  heath." 

1  In  1741,  after  a  decade  of  great  activity  and  growth,  the  entire  clerical 
strength  of  the  American  Presbyterian  Church,  in  its  four  presbyteries,  was 
forty-seven  ministers  (Thompson,  "  Presbyterian  Churches,"  p.  33). 


148  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  x. 

Another  common  characteristic  of  the  four  Southern 
colonies  is  that  upon  them  all  was  imposed  by  foreign 
power  a  church  establishment  not  acceptable  to  the  people. 
In  the  Carolinas  the  attempted  establishment  of  the  Eng- 
lish church  was  an  absolute  failure.  It  was  a  church  (with 
slight  exceptions)  without  parishes,  without  services,  with- 
out clergy,  without  people,  but  with  certain  pretensions  in 
law  which  were  hindrances  in  the  way  of  other  Christian 
work,  and  which  tended  to  make  itself  generally  odious. 
In  the  two  older  colonies  the  Established  Church  was 
worse  than  a  failure.  It  had  endowments,  parsonages, 
glebes,  salaries  raised  by  public  tax,  and  therefore  it  had 
a  clergy — and  such  a  clergy!  Transferring  to  America 
the  most  shameful  faults  of  the  English  EstabHshment,  it 
gave  the  sacred  offices  of  the  Christian  ministry  by  "patron- 
age "  into  the  hands  of  debauched  and  corrupt  adventurers, 
whose  character  in  general  was  below  the  not  very  lofty 
standard  of  the  people  whom  they  pretended  to  serve  in 
the  name  of  Jesus  Christ.  Both  in  Virginia  and  in  Mary- 
land the  infliction  of  this  rabble  of  simonists  as  a  burden 
upon  the  public  treasury  was  a  nuisance  under  which  the 
people  grew  more  and  more  restive  from  year  to  year. 
There  was  no  spiritual  discipline  to  which  this  pre traille 
was  amenable.^    It  was  the  constant  effort  of  good  citizens, 

1  It  is  a  subject  of  unceasing  lament  on  the  part  of  historians  of  the 
American  Episcopal  Church  that  the  mother  church,  all  through  the  colonial 
days,  should  have  obstinately  refused  to  the  daughter  the  gift  of  the  episco- 
pate. There  is  no  denying  the  grave  disadvantages  thus  inflicted.  But  it 
admits  of  doubt  whether  such  bishops,  with  such  conditions,  as  would  have 
been  conceded  by  the  English  church  of  the  eighteenth  century,  would,  after 
all,  have  been  so  very  precious  a  boon.  We  shrink  from  the  imputation  upon 
the  colonial  church  of  Maryland  and  Virginia  which  is  implied  in  suggesting 
that  it  would  have  been  considerably  improved  by  gaining  the  disciplinary 
purity  of  the  English  church  of  the  Georgian  era.  The  long  fight  in  Virginia, 
culminating  in  Patrick  Henry's  speech  in  the  Parsons'  Case,  so  far  American- 
ized the  Episcopal  Church  as  to  make  sure  that  no  unwelcome  minister  was 
ever  to  be  forced  from  outside  on  one  of  its  parishes.  After  the  Revolution 
it  became  possible  to  set  up  the  episcopate  also  on  American  principles. 


THE    CHURCH  OF   THE   SOUTH.  1 49 

in  the  legislature  and  in  the  vestries,  if  not  to  starve  out 
the  vermin,  at  least  to  hold  them  in  some  sort  of  subjection 
to  the  power  of  the  purse.  The  struggle  was  one  of  the 
antecedents  of  the  War  of  Independence,  and  the  vestries 
of  the  Virginia  parishes,  with  their  combined  ecclesiastical 
and  civil  functions,  became  a  training-school  for  some  of 
the  statesmen  of  the  Revolution. 

In  the  general  dereliction  of  churchly  care  for  the  people 
of  the  Southern  colonies,  on  the  part  of  those  who  pro- 
fessed the  main  responsibility  for  it,  the  duty  was  under- 
taken, in  the  face  of  legal  hindrances,  by  earnest  Chris- 
tians of  various  names,  whom  the  established  clergy  vainly 
affected  to  despise.  The  Baptists  and  the  Presbyterians, 
soon  to  be  so  powerfully  prevalent  throughout  the  South, 
were  represented  by  a  few  scattered  congregations.  But 
the  church  of  the  people  of  the  South  at  this  period  seems 
to  have  been  the  Quaker  meeting,  and  the  ministry  the 
occasional  missionary  who,  bearing  credentials  from  some 
yearly  meeting,  followed  in  the  pioneer  footsteps  of  George 
Fox,  and  went  from  one  circle  of  Friends  to  another, 
through  those  vast  expanses  of  thinly  settled  territory,  to 
revive  and  confirm  and  edify.  The  early  fervors  of  the 
Society  were  soon  spent.  Its  work  was  strangely  unstable. 
The  proved  defects  of  it  as  a  working  system  were  grave. 
The  criticism  of  George  Keith  seems  justified  by  the  event 
— its  candle  needed  a  candlestick.  But  no  man  can  truly 
write  the  history  of  the  church  of  Christ  in  the  United 
States  without  giving  honor  to  the  body  which  for  so  long 
a  time  and  over  so  vast  an  area  bore  the  name  and  testi- 


Those  who  are  burdened  with  regret  over  the  long  delay  of  the  American 
Protestant  episcopate  may  find  no  small  consolation  in  pondering  the  ques- 
tion, what  kind  of  an  outfit  of  bishops,  with  canons  attached,  might  have 
been  hoped  for  from  Sir  Robert  Walpole  or  Lord  Bute?  On  the  whole,  at 
this  point  the  American  Episcopal  Church  is  in  the  habit  of  pitying  itself  too 
ranch.     It  has  something  to  be  thankful  for. 


I50  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  X. 

mony  of  Jesus  almost  alone ;  and  no  man  can  read  the 
journeys  and  labors  of  John  Woolman,  mystic  and  ascetic 
saint,  without  recognizing  that  he  and  others  like-minded 
were  nothing  less  than  true  apostles  of  the  Lord  Jesus. 

One  impression  made  by  this  general  survey  of  the 
colonies  is  that  of  the  absence  of  any  sign  of  unity  among 
the  various  Christian  bodies  in  occupation.  One  corner 
of  the  great  domain,  New  England,  was  thickly  planted 
with  homogeneous  churches  in  mutual  fellowship.  One 
order  of  Christians,  the  Quakers,  had  at  least  a  framework 
of  organization  conterminous  with  the  country.  In  general 
there  were  only  scattered  members  of  a  Christian  commu- 
nity, awaiting  the  inbreathing  of  some  quickening  spirit- 
ual influence  that  should  bring  bone  to  its  bone  and  erect 
the  whole  into  a  living  church. 

Another  and  very  gratifying  impression  from  the  story 
thus  far  is  the  general  fidehty  of  the  Christian  colonists  in 
the  work  of  the  gospel  among  the  heathen  Indians.  There 
was  none  of  the  colonies  that  did  not  make  profession  of 
a  zealous  purpose  for  the  Christianizing  of  the  savages ; 
and  it  is  only  just  to  say,  in  the  face  of  much  unjust  and 
evil  talk,  that  there  was  none  that  did  not  give  proof  of  its 
sincerity.  In  Virginia,  the  Puritans  Whitaker  and  Thomas 
Dale ;  in  Marjdand,  the  earliest  companies  of  Jesuit  mis- 
sionaries ;  Campanius  among  the  Swedish  Lutherans ; 
Megapolensis  among  the  Dutchmen,  and  the  Jesuit  martyr 
Jogues  in  the  forests  of  New  York ;  in  New  England,  not 
only  John  Eliot  and  Roger  Williams  and  the  Mayhews, 
but  many  a  village  pastor  like  Fitch  of  Norwich  and  Pier- 
son  of  Branford,  were  distinguished  in  the  first  generation 
by  their  devotion  to  this  duty.^    The  succession  of  faithful 

1  It  is  a  curious  exception,  if  it  is  indeed  an  exception,  that  the  one  Chris- 
tian colony  that  shows  no  record  of  early  Indian  missions  should  be  that  of 


THE   CHURCH  AND    THE  INDIANS.  15  I 

missionaries  has  never  failed  from  that  day  to  this.  The 
large  expectations  of  the  churches  are  indicated  by  the 
erection  of  one  of  the  earliest  buildings  at  Harvard  College 
for  the  use  of  Indian  students.  At  William  and  Mary 
College  not  less  than  seventy  Indian  students  at  one  time 
are  said  to  have  been  gathered  for  an  advanced  education. 
It  was  no  fault  of  the  colonial  churches  that  these  earnest 
and  persistent  efforts  yielded  small  results.  "  We  discover 
a  strange  uniformity  of  feature  in  the  successive  failures. 
.  .  .  Always,  just  when  the  project  seemed  most  hopeful, 
an  indiscriminate  massacre  of  missionaries  and  converts 
together  swept  the  enterprise  out  of  existence.  The  ex- 
perience of  all  was  the  same."  ^ 

It  will  be  a  matter  of  growing  interest,  as  we  proceed, 
to  trace  the  relation  of  the  American  church  to  negro 
slavery. 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  not  without  some  later  analogies, 

William  Penn.  Could  this  be  due  to  the  Quaker  faith  in  the  sufficiency  of 
"  the  Light  that  lighteneth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world  "? 

The  type  of  theology  and  method  of  instruction  used  by  some  of  the  earliest 
laborers  in  this  field  left  something  to  be  desired  in  point  of  adaptedness  to 
the  savage  mind.  Without  irreverence  to  the  great  name  of  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards, there  is  room  for  doubt  whether  he  was  just  the  man  for  the  Stock- 
bridge  Indians.  In  the  case  of  the  Rev.  Abraham  Pierson,  of  Branford,  in 
New  Haven  Colony,  afterward  founder  of  Newark,  we  have  an  illustration 
both  of  his  good  intentions  and  of  his  methods,  which  were  not  so  good,  in 
"Some  Helps  for  the  Indians :  She-Ming  them  how  to  Improzie  their  Natural 
Reason,  to  A';/cw  the  True  Cod  and  the  Christian  Religion."  This  catechism 
is  printed  in  the  Indian  language  with  an  English  version  interlined. 

"Q.   How  do  you  prove  that  there  is  but  one  true  God? 

"An.  Because  the  reason  why  singular  things  of  the  same  kind  are  mul- 
tiplied is  not  to  be  found  in  the  nature  of  God  ;  for  the  reason  why  such  like 
things  are  multiplied  is  from  the  fruitfulness  of  their  causes :  but  God  hath 
no  cause  of  his  being,  but  is  of  himself.  Therefore  he  is  one."  (And  so  on 
through  secondly  and  thirdly.) 

Fer  contra,  a  sermon  to  the  Stockbridge  Indians  by  the  most  ponderous  of  the 
metaphysical  preachers  of  New  England,  Samuel  Hopkins,  is  beautifully  sim- 
ple and  childlike.    It  is  given  in  full  in  Park's  "  Life  of  Hopkins,"  pp.  46-49. 

1  McConnell,  "  History  of  the  American  Episcopal  Church,"  p.  7.  The 
statement  calls  for  qualification  in  detail,  but  the  general  fact  is  unmistakable. 


152  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  x. 

that  the  introduction  into  the  New  World  of  this  "  direful 
spring  of  woes  unnumbered  "  was  promoted,  in  the  first 
instance,  by  the  good  Las  Casas,  as  the  hopeful  preventive 
of  a  worse  evil.  Touched  by  the  spectacle  of  whole  tribes 
and  nations  of  the  Indians  perishing  under  the  cruel  servi- 
tude imposed  upon  them  by  the  Spanish,  it  seemed  to  him 
a  less  wrong  to  transfer  the  infliction  of  this  injustice  to 
shoulders  more  able  to  bear  it.  But  "  man's  inhumanity 
to  man  "  needed  no  pretext  of  philanthropy.  From  the 
landing  of  the  Dutch  ship  at  Jamestown  in  1619,  with  her 
small  invoice  of  fourteen  negroes,  the  dismal  trade  went 
on  increasing,  in  spite  of  humane  protest  and  attempted 
prohibition.  The  legislature  of  Massachusetts,  which  was 
the  representative  of  the  church,  set  forth  what  it  conceived 
to  be  the  biblical  ethics  on  the  subject.  Recognizing  that 
"  lawful  captives  taken  in  just  wars  "  may  be  held  in  bond- 
age, it  declared  among  its  earliest  public  acts,  in  1641, 
that,  with  this  exception,  no  involuntary  bond-slavery, 
villeinage,  or  captivity  should  ever  be  in  the  colony ;  and 
in  1646  it  took  measures  for  returning  to  Africa  negroes 
who  had  been  kidnapped  by  a  slaver.  It  is  not  strange 
that  reflection  on  the  golden  rule  should  soon  raise  doubts 
whether  the  precedents  of  the  Book  of  Joshua  had  equal 
authority  with  the  law  of  Christ.  In  1675  John  Eliot, 
from  the  midst  of  his  work  among  the  Indians,  warned 
the  governor  against  the  sale  of  Indians  taken  in  war,  on 
the  ground  that  "  the  selling  of  souls  is  dangerous  mer- 
chandise," and  "  with  a  bleeding  and  burning  passion  " 
remonstrated  against  "  the  abject  condition  of  the  enslaved 
Africans."  In  1700  that  typical  Puritan,  Judge  Samuel 
Sewall,  published  his  pamphlet  on  "  The  Selling  of  Joseph," 
claiming  for  the  negroes  the  rights  of  brethren,  and  pre- 
dicting that  there  would  be  "  no  progress  in  gospeling  " 
until  slavery  should  be  abolished.     Those  were  serious 


THE   CHURCH  AND  SLAVERY. 


153 


days  of  antislavery  agitation,  when  Cotton  Mather,  in  his 
"  Essays  to  Do  Good,"  spoke  of  the  injustice  of  slavery  in 
terms  such  that  his  little  book  had  to  be  expurgated  by 
the  American  Tract  Society  to  accommodate  it  to  the 
degenerate  conscience  of  a  later  day,  and  when  the  town 
of  Boston  in  1701  took  measures  "to  put  a  period  to  ne- 
groes being  slaves."  Such  endeavors  after  universal  justice 
and  freedom,  on  the  part  of  the  Christians  of  New  England, 
thwarted  by  the  insatiable  greed  of  British  traders  and 
politicians,  were  not  to  cease  until,  with  the  first  enlarge- 
ment of  independence,  they  should  bring  forth  judgment 
to  victory. 

The  voice  of  New  England  was  echoed  from  Pennsyl- 
vania. The  Mennonites  of  Germantown,  in  1688,  framed 
in  quaint  and  touching  language  their  petition  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  and  the  Quaker  yearly  meetings  re- 
sponded one  to  another  with  unanimous  protest.  But  the 
mischief  grew  and  grew.  In  the  Northern  colonies  the 
growth  was  stunted  by  the  climate.  Elsewhere  the  insti- 
tution, beginning  with  the  domestic  service  of  a  few  bond- 
men attached  to  their  masters'  families,  took  on  a  new  type 
of  malignity  as  it  expanded.  In  proportion  as  the  servile 
population  increases  to  such  numbers  as  to  be  formidable, 
laws  of  increasing  severity  are  directed  to  restraining  or 
repressing  it.  The  first  symptoms  of  insurrection  are  fol- 
lowed by  horrors  of  bloody  vengeance,  and  "  from  that 
time  forth  the  slave  laws  have  but  one  quality — that  of 
ferocity  engendered  by  fear."  ^  It  was  not  from  the  willful 
inhumanity  of  the  Southern  colonies,  but  from  their  terrors, 
that  those  slave  codes  came  forth  which  for  nearly  two 
centuries  were  the  shame  of  America  and  the  scandal  of 
Christendom.  It  is  a  comfort  to  the  heart  of  humanity  to 
reflect  that  the  people  were  better  than  their  laws ;  it  was 

1  H.  C.  Lodge,  "  English  Colonies,"  p.  67  et  seq. 


154  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [CiiAr.  x. 

only  at  the  recurring  periods  of  fear  of  insurrection  that 
they  were  worse.  In  ordinary  times  human  sympathy  and 
Christian  principle  softened  the  rigors  of  the  situation. 
The  first  practical  fruits  of  the  revival  of  religion  in  the 
Southern  colonies  were  seen  in  efforts  of  Christian  kind- 
ness toward  the  souls  and  bodies  of  the  slaves. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

THE   GREAT   AWAKENING. 

It  was  not  wholly  dark  in  American  Christendom  before 
the  dawn  of  the  Great  Awakening.  The  censoriousness 
which  was  the  besetting  sin  of  the  evangelists  in  that  great 
religious  movement,  the  rhetorical  temptation  to  glorify 
the  revival  by  intensifying  the  contrast  with  the  antecedent 
condition,  and  the  exaggerated  revivalism  ever  since  so 
prevalent  in  the  American  church, — the  tendency  to  con- 
sider religion  as  consisting  mainly  in  scenes  and  periods  of 
special  fervor,  and  the  intervals  between  as  so  much  void 
space  and  waste  time, — all  these  have  combined  to  deepen 
the  dark  tints  in  which  the  former  state  is  set  before  us  in 
history. 

The  power  of  godliness  was  manifest  in  the  earlier  days 
by  many  infallible  signs,  not  excluding  those  "  times  of  re- 
freshing" in  which  the  simultaneous  earnestness  of  many 
souls  compels  the  general  attention.  Even  in  Northamp- 
ton, where  the  doctrine  of  the  venerable  Stoddard  as  to 
the  conditions  of  communion  has  been  thought  to  be  the 
low-water  mark  of  church  vitality,  not  less  than  five  such 
"harvest  seasons  "  were  within  recent  memory.  It  was  to 
this  parish  in  a  country  town  on  the  frontier  of  civilization, 
but  the  most  important  in  Massachusetts  outside  of  Boston, 
that  there  came,  in  the  year  1727,  to  serve  as  colleague  to 
his  aged  grandfather,  Pastor  Stoddard,  a  young  man  whose 


156  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  XI. 

wonderful  intellectual  and  spiritual  gifts  had  from  his 
childhood  awakened  the  pious  hopes  of  all  who  had  known 
him,  and  who  was  destined  in  his  future  career  to  be 
recognized  as  the  most  illustrious  of  the  saints  and  doctors 
of  the  American  church.  The  authentic  facts  of  the  boy- 
hood of  Jonathan  Edwards  read  like  the  myths  that  adorn 
the  legendary  Lives  of  the  Saints.  As  an  undergraduate 
of  Yale  College,  before  the  age  of  seventeen,  his  reflections 
on  the  mysteries  of  God,  and  the  universe,  and  the  human 
mind,  were  such  as  even  yet  command  the  attention  and 
respect  of  students  of  philosophy.  He  remained  at  New 
Haven  two  years  after  graduation,  for  the  further  study 
of  theology,  and  then  spent  eight  months  in  charge  of  the 
newly  organized  Presbyterian  church  in  New  York.^  After 
this  he  spent  two  years  as  tutor  at  Yale, — "  one  of  the 
pillar  tutors,  and  the  glory  of  the  college," — at  the  critical 
period  after  the  defection  of  Rector  Cutler  to  the  Church 
of  England.^  From  this  position  he  was  called  in  1726,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-three,  to  the  church  at  Northampton. 
There  he  was  ordained  February  15,  1727,  and  thither  a 
few  months  later  he  brought  his  "  espoused  saint,"  Sarah 
Pierpont,  consummate  flower  of  Puritan  womanhood, 
thenceforth  the  companion  not  only  of  his  pastoral  cares 
and  sorrows,  but  of  his  seraphic  contemplations  of  divine 
things. 

The  intensely  earnest  sermons,  the  holy  life,  and  the 
loving  prayers  of  one  of  the  greatest  preachers  in  the 
history  of  the  church  were  not  long  in  bearing  abundant 
fruit.     In  a  time  of  spiritual  and  moral  depression,  when 

1  Of  how  little  relative  importance  was  this  charge  may  be  judged  from  the 
fact  that  a  quarter-century  later,  when  the  famous  Joseph  Bellamy  was  in- 
vited to  it  from  his  tiny  parish  of  Bethlem,  Conn.,  the  council  called  to  advise 
in  the  case  judged  that  the  interests  of  Bethlem  were  too  important  to  be 
sacrificed  to  the  demands  of  New  York. 

2  See  the  altogether  admirable  monograph  of  Professor  A,  V.  G.  Allen  on 
"  Jonathan  Edwards,"  p.  23. 


AWAKENING  AT  NORTHAMPTON.  1 57 

the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil  seemed  to  be  gaining 
against  the  gospel,  sometime  in  the  year  1733  signs  began 
to  be  visible  of  yielding  to  the  power  of  God's  Word.  The 
frivolous  or  wanton  frolics  of  the  youth  began  to  be  ex- 
changed for  meetings  for  religious  conference.  The  pastor 
was  encouraged  to  renewed  tenderness  and  solemnity  in 
his  preaching.  His  themes  were  justification  by  faith,  the 
awfulness  of  God's  justice,  the  excellency  of  Christ,  the 
duty  of  pressing  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  Presently  a 
young  woman,  a  leader  in  the  village  gayeties,  became 
"  serious,  giving  evidence,"  even  to  the  severe  judgment 
of  Edwards,  "  of  a  heart  truly  broken  and  sanctified."  A 
general  seriousness  began  to  spread  over  the  whole  town. 
Hardly  a  single  person,  old  or  young,  but  felt  concerned 
about  eternalthings.   Accordingto  Edwards's  "Narrative" : 

"  The  work  of  God,  as  it  was  carried  on,  and  the  number 
of  true  saints  multiplied,  soon  made  a  glorious  alteration 
in  the  town,  so  that  in  the  spring  and  summer,  anno  1735, 
the  town  seemed  to  be  full  of  the  presence  of  God.  It  was 
never  so  full  of  love,  nor  so  full  of  joy,  and  yet  so  full  of 
distress,  as  it  was  then.  There  were  remarkable  tokens  of 
God's  presence  in  almost  every  house.  It  was  a  time  of 
joy  in  families  on  the  account  of  salvation's  being  brought 
unto  them ;  parents  rejoicing  over  their  children  as  being 
new-born,  and  husbands  over  their  wives,  and  wives  over 
their  husbands.  The  goings  of  God  were  then  seen  in  his 
sanctuary.  God's  day  was  a  delight,  and  his  tabernacles 
were  amiable.  Our  public  assemblies  were  then  beauti- 
ful ;  the  congregation  was  alive  in  God's  service,  every 
one  intent  on  the  public  worship,  every  hearer  eager  to 
drink  in  the  words  of  the  minister  as  they  came  from  his 
mouth;  the  assembly  in  general  were  from  time  to  time 
in  tears  while  the  Word  was  preached,  some  weeping  with 
sorrow  and  distress,  others  with  joy  and  love,  others  with 
pity  and  concern  for  the  souls  of  their  neighbors.     Our 


158  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xi. 

public  praises  were  then  greatly  enlivened ;  God  was  then 
served  in  our  psalmody  in  some  measure  in  the  beauty  of 
holiness." 

The  crucial  test  of  the  divineness  of  the  work  was  given 
when  the  people  presented  themselves  before  the  Lord 
with  a  solemn  act  of  thanksgiving  for  his  great  goodness 
and  his  gracious  presence  in  the  town  of  Northampton, 
with  publicly  recorded  vows  to  renounce  their  evil  ways 
and  put  away  their  abominations  from  before  his  eyes. 
They  solemnly  promise  thenceforth,  in  all  dealings  with 
their  neighbor,  to  be  governed  by  the  rules  of  honesty, 
justice,  and  uprightness ;  not  to  overreach  or  defraud  him, 
nor  anywise  to  injure  him,  whether  willfully  or  through 
want  of  care ;  to  regard  not  only  their  own  interest,  but 
his;  particularly,  to  be  faithful  in  the  payment  of  just 
debts ;  in  the  case  of  past  wrongs  against  any,  never  to 
rest  till  they  have  made  full  reparation ;  to  refrain  from  evil 
speaking,  and  from  everything  that  feeds  a  spirit  of  bitter- 
ness ;  to  do  nothing  in  a  spirit  of  revenge ;  not  to  be  led 
by  private  or  partisan  interest  into  any  course  hurtful  to 
the  interests  of  Christ's  kingdom ;  particularly,  in  public 
affairs,  not  to  allow  ambition  or  partisanship  to  lead  them 
counter  to  the  interest  of  true  religion.  Those  who  are 
young  promise  to  allow  themselves  in  no  diversions  that 
would  hinder  a  devout  spirit,  and  to  avoid  everything  that 
tends  to  lasciviousness,  and  which  will  not  be  approved  by 
the  infinitely  pure  and  holy  eye  of  God.  Finally,  they 
consecrate  themselves  watchfully  to  perform  the  relative 
duties  of  parents  and  children,  husbands  and  wives, 
brothers  and  sisters,  masters,  mistresses,  and  servants. 

So  great  a  work  as  this  could  not  be  hid.  The  whole 
region  of  the  Connecticut  Valley,  in  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut,  and  neighboring  regions  felt  the  influence  of 
it.    The  fame  of  it  went  abroad.    A  letter  of  Edwards's  in 


EDWARDS  AS  PASTOR.  1 59 

reply  to  inquiries  from  his  friend,  Dr.  Colman,  of  Boston, 
was  forwarded  to  Dr.  Watts  and  Dr.  Guise,  of  London, 
and  by  them  published  under  the  title  of  "  Narrative  of 
Surprising  Conversions."  A  copy  of  the  little  book  was 
carried  in  his  pocket  for  wayside  reading  on  a  walk  from 
London  to  Oxford  by  John  Wesley,  in  the  year  1738. 
Not  yet  in  the  course  of  his  work  had  he  "  seen  it  on  this 
fashion,"  and  he  writes  in  his  journal:  "Surely  this  is 
the  Lord's  doing,  and  it  is  marvelous  in  our  eyes." 

Both  in  this  narrative  and  in  a  later  work  on  "  The  Dis- 
tinguishing Marks  of  a  Work  of  the  Spirit  of  God,"  one 
cannot  but  admire  the  divine  gift  of  a  calm  wisdom  with 
which  Edwards  had  been  endowed  as  if  for  this  exigency. 
He  is  never  dazzled  by  the  incidents  of  the  work,  nor  dis- 
tracted by  them  from  the  essence  of  it.  His  argument  for 
the  divineness  of  the  work  is  not  founded  on  the  unusual 
or  extraordinary  character  of  it,  nor  on  the  impressive 
bodily  effects  sometimes  attending  it,  such  as  tears,  groans, 
outcries,  convulsions,  or  faintings,  nor  on  visions  or  ecsta- 
sies or  "impressions."  What  he  claims  is  that  the  work 
may  be  divine,  notwithstanding  the  presence  of  these  in- 
cidents.i  It  was  doubtless  owing  to  the  firm  and  judicious 
guidance  of  such  a  pastor  that  the  intense  religious  fervor 
of  this  first  awakening  at  Northampton  was  marked  by  so 
much  of  sobriety  and  order.  In  later  years,  in  other  re- 
gions, and  under  the  influence  of  preachers  not  of  greater 
earnestness,  but  of  less  wisdom  and  discretion,  there  were 
habitual  scenes  of  extravagant  and  senseless  enthusiasm, 
which  make  the  closing  pages  of  this  chapter  of  church 
history  painfully  instructive. 

It  is  not  diflRcult  to  understand  how  one  of  the  first 
places  at  a  distance  to  feel  the  kindling  example  of  North- 
ampton should  be  the  neighborhood  of  Newark.     To  this 

1  Allen,  "Jonathan  Edwards, "  pp.  164-174. 


l6o  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xi. 

region,  planted,  as  we  have  seen,  with  so  strong  a  stock 
from  New  England,  from  old  England,  and  from  Scotland, 
came,  in  1 708,  a  youth  of  twenty  years,  Jonathan  Dickin- 
son, a  native  of  the  historic  little  town  of  Hatfield,  next 
neighbor  to  Northampton.  He  was  pastor  at  Elizabeth, 
but  his  influence  and  activity  extended  through  all  that 
part  of  New  Jersey,  and  he  became  easily  the  leader  of 
the  rapidly  growing  communion  of  Presbyterian  churches 
in  that  province,  and  the  opponent,  in  the  interest  of 
Christian  liberty  and  sincerity,  of  rigid  terms  of  subscrip- 
tion, demanded  by  men  of  little  faith.  There  is  a  great 
career  before  him;  but  that  which  concerns  the  present 
topic  is  his  account  of  what  took  place  "  sometime  in  Au- 
gust, 1739  (the  summer  before  Mr.  Whitefield  came  first 
into  these  parts),  when  there  was  a  remarkable  revival  at 
Newark.  .  .  .  This  revival  of  religion  was  chiefly  observ- 
able among  the  younger  people,  till  the  following  March, 
when  the  whole  town  in  general  was  brought  under  an 
uncommon  concern  about  their  eternal  interests,  and  the 
congregation  appeared  universally  afl"ected  under  some 
sermons  that  were  then  preached  to  them." 

Like  scenes  of  spiritual  quickening  were  witnessed  that 
same  season  in  other  parts  of  New  Jersey ;  but  special 
interest  attaches  to  the  report  from  New  Londonderry, 
Penn.,  where  a  Scotch-Irish  community  received  as  its 
pastor,  in  the  spring  of  1740,  Samuel  Blair,  a  native  of 
Ireland,  trained  in  the  Log  College  of  William  Tennent. 
He  describes  the  people,  at  his  first  knowledge  of  them,  as 
sunk  in  a  religious  torpor,  ignorance,  and  indifference. 
The  first  sign  of  vitality  was  observed  in  March,  1740, 
during  the  pastor's  absence,  when,  under  an  alarming 
sermon  from  a  neighbor  minister: 

"  There  was  a  visible  appearance  of  much  soul-concern 


AlVAK-EiYING  LY  FEA'XSYLJ'AiyiA.  l6l 

among  the  hearers ;  so  that  some  burst  out  with  an  audible 
noise  into  bitter  crying,  a  thing  not  known  in  these  parts 
before.  .  .  .  The  first  sermon  I  preached  after  my  return 
to  them  was  from  Matthew  vi.  33  :  '  Seek  ye  first  the  king- 
dom of  God,  and  his  righteousness.'  After  opening  up  and 
explaining  the  parts  of  the  text,  when  in  the  improvement 
I  came  to  press  the  injunction  in  the  text  upon  the  uncon- 
verted and  ungodly,  and  offered  this  as  one  reason  among 
others  why  they  should  now  first  of  all  seek  the  kingdom 
and  righteousness  of  God,  viz.,  that  they  had  neglected  too 
long  to  do  so  already,  this  consideration  seemed  to  come  and 
cut  like  a  sword  upon  several  in  the  congregation ;  so  that 
while  I  was  speaking  upon  it  they  could  no  longer  contain, 
but  burst  out  in  the  most  bitter  mourning.  I  desired  them 
as  much  as  possible  to  restrain  themselves  from  making 
any  noise  that  would  hinder  themselves  or  others  from 
hearing  what  was  spoken ;  and  often  afterward  I  had  oc- 
casion to  repeat  the  same  counsel.  I  still  advised  people 
to  endeavor  to  moderate  and  bound  their  passions,  but  not 
so  as  to  resist  and  stifle  their  convictions.  The  number 
of  the  awakened  increased  very  fast.  Frequently  under 
sermons  there  were  some  newly  convicted  and  brought 
into  deep  distress  of  soul  about  their  perishing  estate. 
Our  Sabbath  assemblies  soon  became  vastly  large,  many 
people  from  almost  all  parts  around  inclining  very  much 
to  come  where  there  was  such  appearance  of  the  divine 
power  and  presence.  I  think  there  was  scarcely  a  sermon 
or  lecture  preached  here  through  that  whole  summer  but 
there  were  manifest  evidences  of  impressions  on  the  hearers, 
and  many  times  the  impressions  were  very  great  and  gen- 
eral. Several  would  be  overcome  and  fainting;  others 
deeply  sobbing,  hardly  able  to  contain ;  others  crying  in  a 
most  dolorous  manner;  many  others  more  silently  weep- 
ing, and  a  solemn  concern  appearing  in  the  countenances 
of  many  others.  And  sometimes  the  soul-exercises  of 
some  (though  comparatively  but  very  few)  would  so  far 
affect  their  bodies  as  to  occasion  some  strange,  unusual 
bodily  motions.     I  had  opportunities  of  speaking  particu- 


1 62  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xi. 

larly  with  a  great  many  of  those  who  afforded  such  out- 
ward tokens  of  inward  soul-concern  in  the  time  of  public 
worship  and  hearing  of  the  Word.  Indeed,  many  came 
to  me  of  themselves,  in  their  distress,  for  private  instruc- 
tion and  counsel;  and  I  found,  so  far  as  I  can  remember, 
that  with  by  far  the  greater  part  their  apparent  concern  in 
public  was  not  just  a  transient  qualm  of  conscience  or 
merely  a  floating  commotion  of  the  affections,  but  a  ra- 
tional, fixed  conviction  of  their  dangerous,  perishing 
estate.   .   .   . 

"  In  some  time  many  of  the  convinced  and  distressed 
afforded  very  hopeful,  satisfying  evidence  that  the  Lord 
had  brought  them  to  true  closure  with  Jesus  Christ,  and 
that  their  distresses  and  fears  had  been  in  a  great  measure 
removed  in  a  right  gospel  way,  by  believing  in  the  Son  of 
God.  Several  of  them  had  very  remarkable  and  sweet 
deliverances  this  way.  It  was  very  agreeable  to  hear  their 
accounts  how  that  when  they  were  in  the  deepest  per- 
plexity and  darkness,  distress  and  difficulty,  seeking  God 
as  poor,  condemned,  hell-deserving  sinners,  the  scene  of 
recovering  grace  through  a  Redeemer  has  been  opened  to 
their  understandings  with  a  surprising  beauty  and  glory, 
so  that  they  were  enabled  to  believe  in  Christ  with  joy 
unspeakable  and  full  of  glory."  ^ 

The  experience  of  Gilbert  Tennent  at  New  Brunswick 
had  no  connection  with  the  first  awakening  at  Northamp- 
ton, but  had  important  relations  with  later  events.  He 
was  the  eldest  of  the  four  sons  whom  William  Tennent, 
the  Episcopalian  minister  from  Ireland,  had  brought  with 
him  to  America  and  educated  at  his  Log  College.  In  1 727 
he  became  pastor  of  a  church  at  New  Brunswick,  where 
he  was  much  impressed  with  what  he  saw  of  the  results  of 

1  Joseph  Tracy,  "The  Great  Awakening,"  chap.  ii.  This  work,  of  ac- 
knowledged value  and  authority,  is  on  the  list  of  the  Congregational  Board 
of  Publication.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  the  Board  does  not  publish 
it  as  well  as  announce  it.  A  new  edition  of  it,  under  the  hand  of  a  competent 
editor,  with  a  good  index,  would  be  a  useful  ser\'ice  to  history. 


TENNENT  AND    WHITEFIELD.  1 63 

the  work  of  the  Rev.  Theodore  FreHnghuysen,  who  for 
seven  years  had  been  pastor  of  a  neighboring  Dutch 
church.  The  example  and  fraternal  counsel  of  this  good 
man  made  him  sensible  of  the  fruitlessness  of  his  own 
work,  and  moved  him  to  more  earnest  prayers  and  labors. 
Having  been  brought  low  with  sickness,  lie  prayed  to  God 
to  grant  him  one  half-year  more  in  which  to  "  endeavor  to 
promote  his  kingdom  with  all  my  might  at  all  adventures." 
Being  raised  up  from  sickness,  he  devoted  himself  to 
earnest  personal  labors  with  individuals  and  to  renewed 
faithfulness  in  the  pulpit,  "  which  method  was  sealed  by 
the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  conviction  and  conversion  of  a  con- 
siderable number  of  persons,  at  various  times  and  in  dif- 
ferent places,  in  that  part  of  the  country,  as  appeared  by 
their  acquaintance  with  experimental  religion  and  good 
conversation."  This  bit  of  pastoral  history,  in  which  is 
nothing  startling  or  prodigious,  was  at  least  five  years 
previous  to  the  "  Surprising  Conversions"  at  Northamp- 
ton. There  must  have  been  generally  throughout  the 
country  a  preparedness  for  the  Great  Awakening. 

It  was  in  that  year  (1735)  in  which  the  town  of  North- 
ampton was  all  ablaze  with  the  glory  of  its  first  revival 
under  Edwards  that  George  Whitefield,  first  among  tlie 
members  of  Wesley's  "  Holy  Club  "  at  Oxford,  attained 
to  that  "sense  of  the  divine  love"  from  which  he  was 
wont  to  date  his  conversion.  In  May,  1738,  when  the 
last  reflections  from  the  Northampton  revival  had  faded 
out  from  all  around  the  horizon,  the  young  clergyman, 
whose  first  efforts  as  a  preacher  in  pulpits  of  the  Church 
of  England  had  astonished  all  hearers  by  the  power  of  his 
eloquence,  arrived  at  Savannah,  urged  by  the  importunity 
of  the  Wesleys  to  take  up  the  work  in  Georgia  in  whicli 
they  had  so  conspicuously  failed.    He  entered  eagerly  into 


1 64  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xi. 

the  sanguine  schemes  for  the  advantage  of  the  young 
colony,  and  especially  into  the  scheme  for  building  and 
endowing  an  orphan-house  in  just  that  corner  of  the  earth 
where  there  was  less  need  of  such  an  institution  than  any- 
where else.  After  three  months'  stay  he  started  on  his 
return  to  England  to  seek  priest's  orders  for  himself,  and 
funds  for  the  orphans  that  might  be  expected  sometime  in 
Georgia.  He  was  successful  in  both  his  errands.  He  was 
ordained ;  he  collected  more  than  one  thousand  pounds  for 
the  orphan-house ;  and  being  detained  in  the  kingdom  by 
an  embargo,  he  began  that  course  of  evangelistic  preaching 
which  continued  on  either  side  of  the  ocean  until  his  death, 
and  which  is  without  a  parallel  in  church  history.  His 
incomparable  eloquence  thronged  the  parish  churches, 
until  the  churches  were  closed  against  him,  and  the  Bishop 
of  London  warned  the  people  against  him  in  a  pastoral 
letter.  Then  he  went  out  into  the  open  fields,  in  the  ser- 
vice, as  he  said,  of  him  "  who  had  a  mountain  for  his  pul- 
pit, and  the  heavens  for  his  sounding-board,  and  who, 
when  his  gospel  was  refused  by  the  Jews,  sent  his  servants 
into  the  highways  and  hedges."  Multitudes  of  every  rank 
thronged  him;  but  especially  the  heathenized  and  em- 
bruted  colliers  near  Bristol  listened  to  the  unknown  gospel, 
and  their  awakened  feelings  were  revealed  to  the  preacher 
by  his  observing  the  white  gutters  made  by  the  tears  that 
ran  down  their  grimy  faces.  At  last  the  embargo  was 
raised,  and  committing  his  work  to  Wesley,  whom  he  had 
drawn  into  field-preaching,  he  sailed  in  August,  1739,  for 
Philadelphia,  on  his  way  to  Georgia.  His  fame  had  gone 
before  him,  and  the  desire  to  hear  him  was  universal.  The 
churches  would  not  contain  the  throngs.  It  was  long 
remembered  how,  on  those  summer  evenings,  he  would 
take  his  stand  in  the  balcony  of  the  old  court-house  in 
Market  Street,  and  how  every  syllable  from  his  wonderful 


APOSTOLATE   OF   WHITEFIELD.  1 65 

voice  would  be  heard  aboard  the  river-craft  moored  at  the 
foot  of  the  street,  four  hundred  feet  away. 

At  New  York  the  Episcopal  church  was  closed  against 
him,  but  the  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  church,  Mr.  Pem- 
berton,  from  Boston,  made  him  welcome,  and  the  fields 
were  free  to  him  and  his  hearers.  On  the  way  to  New  York 
and  back,  the  tireless  man  preached  at  every  town.  At  New 
Brunswick  he  saw  and  heard  with  profound  admiration  Gil- 
bert Tennent,  thenceforth  his  friend  and  yokefellow. 

Seeing  the  solemn  eagerness  of  the  people  everywhere 
to  hear  him,  he  determined  to  make  the  journey  to  Sa- 
vannah by  land,  and  again  he  turned  the  long  journey 
into  a  campaign  of  preaching.  Arriving  at  Savannah  in 
January,  1740,  he  laid  the  foundation  of  his  orphan-house, 
"  Bethesda,"  and  in  March  was  again  on  his  way  north- 
ward on  a  tour  of  preaching  and  solicitation  of  funds. 
Touching  at  Charleston,  where  the  bishop's  commissary, 
Dr.  Garden,  was  at  open  controversy  with  him,  he  preached 
five  times  and  received  seventy  pounds  for  his  charitable 
work.  Landing  at  New  Castle  on  a  Sunday  morning,  he 
preached  morning  and  evening.  Monday  morning  he 
preached  at  Wilmington  to  a  vast  assemblage.  Tuesday 
evening  he  preached  on  Society  Hill,  in  Philadelphia,  "  to 
about  eight  thousand,"  and  at  the  same  place  Wednesday 
morning  and  evening.  Then  once  more  he  made  the  tour 
to  New  York  and  back,  preaching  at  every  halting-place. 
A  contemporary  newspaper  contains  the  following  item : 

"New  Castle,  May  15th.  This  evening  Mr.  Whitefield 
went  on  board  his  sloop  here  in  order  to  sail  for  Georgia. 
On  Sunday  he  preached  twice  in  Philadelphia,  and  in  the 
evening,  when  he  preached  his  farewell  sermon,  it  is  sup- 
posed he  had  twenty  thousand  hearers.  On  Monday  he 
preached  at  Darby  and  Chester ;  on  Tuesday  at  Wilming- 
ton and  Whiteclay  Creek ;  on  Wednesday,  twice  at  Not- 


l66  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xt. 

tingham;  on  Thursday  at  Fog's  Manor  and  New  Castle. 
The  congregations  were  much  increased  since  his  being 
here  last.  The  presence  of  God  was  much  seen  in  the 
assemblies,  especially  at  Nottingham  and  Fog's  Manor, 
where  the  people  were  under  such  deep  soul- distress  that 
their  cries  almost  drowned  his  voice.  He  has  collected  in 
this  and  the  neighboring  provinces  about  four  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  sterling  for  his  orphans  in  Georgia." 

Into  the  feeble  but  rapidly  growing  presbyteries  and 
the  one  synod  of  the  American  Presbyterian  Church  the 
revival  had  brought,  not  peace,  but  a  sword.  The  collision 
was  inevitable  between  the  fervor  and  unrestrained  zeal  of 
the  evangelists  and  the  sense  of  order  and  decorum,  and 
of  the  importance  of  organization  and  method,  into  which 
men  are  trained  in  the  ministry  of  an  established  church. 
No  man,  even  at  this  day,  can  read  the  "standards"  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church  without  seeing  that  they  have 
had  to  be  strained  to  admit  those  "  revival  methods  "  which 
ever  since  the  days  of  Whitefield  have  prevailed  in  that 
body.  The  conflict  that  arose  was  not  unlike  that  which 
from  the  beginning  of  New  England  history  had  subsisted 
between  Separatist  and  Nationalist.  In  the  Presbyterian 
conflict,  as  so  often  in  religious  controversies,  disciplinary 
and  doctrinal  questions  were  complicated  with  a  difference 
of  race.  The  "  Old  Side  "  was  the  Scotch  and  Irish  party ; 
the  "  New  Side  "  was  the  New  England  party,  to  which 
many  of  the  old-country  ministers  adhered.  For  successive 
years  the  mutual  opposition  had  shown  itself  in  the  synod  ; 
and  in  1740,  at  the  synod  meeting  at  Philadelphia,  soon 
after  the  departure  of  Whitefield,  the  real  gravamen  of 
the  controversy  appeared,  in  the  implied  and  even  express 
impeachment  of  the  spiritual  character  of  the  Old  Side 
ministers.  The  impeachment  had  been  implied  in  the 
coming  of   the    evangelists    uninvited   into    other  men's 


THE  REVIVAL   BRINGS  DIl  ISION.  16/ 

parishes,  as  if  these  were  mission  ground.  And  now  it 
was  expressed  in  papers  read  before  the  synod  by  Blair 
and  Gilbert  Tennent.  The  action  of  the  synod  went  so 
far  toward  sustaining  the  men  of  the  New  Side  as  to  re- 
peal the  rule  restraining  ministers  from  preaching  outside 
of  their  own  parishes,  and  as  to  put  on  record  a  thank:;- 
giving  for  the  work  of  God  in  the  land.  Through  all  tie 
days  of  the  synod's  meeting,  daily  throngs  on  Society  Hill 
were  addressed  by  the  Tennents  and  other  "  hot  gospelers  " 
of  the  revival,  and  churches  and  private  houses  were  re- 
sounding with  revival  hymns  and  exhortations.  Already 
the  preaching  and  printing  of  Gilbert  Tennent's  "  Notting- 
ham Sermon  "  had  made  further  fellowship  between  the 
two  parties  for  the  time  impossible.  The  sermon  flagrantly 
illustrated  the  worst  characteristic  of  the  revivalists — their 
censoriousness.  It  was  a  violent  invective  on"  The  Danger 
of  an  Unconverted  Ministry,"  which  so  favorable  a  critic 
as  Dr.  Alexander  has  characterized  as  "  one  of  the  most 
severely  abusive  sermons  which  was  ever  penned."  The 
answer  to  it  came  in  a  form  that  might  have  been  expected. 
At  the  opening  of  the  synod  of  174 1  a  solemn  protestation 
was  presented  containing  an  indictment  in  seven  grave 
counts  against  the  men  of  the  New  Side,  and  declaring 
them  to  "  have  at  present  no  right  to  sit  and  vote  as 
members  of  this  synod,  and  that  if  they  should  sit  and 
vote,  the  doings  of  the  synod  would  be  of  no  force  or 
obligation."  The  protestation  was  adopted  by  the  synod 
by  a  bare  majority  of  a  small  attendance.  The  presbytery 
of  New  Brunswick  found  itself  exscinded  by  this  short  and 
easy  process  of  discipline ;  the  presbytery  of  New  York 
joined  with  it  in  organizing  a  new  synod,  and  the  schism 
was  complete. 

It  is  needless  further  to  follow  in  detail  the  amazing 
career  of  Whitefield,  "  posting  o'er  land  and  ocean  without 


1 68  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xi. 

rest,"  and  attended  at  every  movement  by  such  storms  of 
religious  agitation  as  have  been  already  described.  In 
August,  1740,  he  made  his  first  visit  to  New  England. 
He  met  with  a  cordial  welcome.  At  Boston  all  pulpits 
were  opened  to  him,  and  churches  were  thronged  with 
eager  and  excited  hearers.^  He  preached  on  the  common 
in  the  open  air,  and  the  crowds  were  doubled.  All  the 
surrounding  towns,  and  the  coast  eastward  to  Maine,  and 
the  interior  as  far  as  Northampton,  and  the  Connecticut 
towns  along  the  road  to  New  York,  were  wonderfully 
aroused  by  the  preaching,  which,  according  to  the  testi- 
mony of  two  nations  and  all  grades  of  society,  must  have 
been  of  unequaled  power  over  the  feelings.  Not  only  the 
clergy,  including  the  few  Church  of  England  missionaries, 
but  the  colleges  and  the  magistrates  delighted  to  honor 
him.  Belcher,  the  royal  governor  at  Boston,  fairly  slob- 
bered over  him,  with  tears  and  embraces  and  kisses ;  and 
the  devout  Governor  Talcott,  at  New  Haven,  gave  God 
thanks,  after  listening  to  the  great  preacher,  "for  such 
refreshings  on  the  way  to  our  rest."  So  he  was  sped  on 
his  way  back  to  the  South. 

Relieved  thus  of  the  glamor  of  his  presence,  the  Nev/ 
England  people  began,  some  of  them,  to  recognize  in  what 
an  earthen  vessel  their  treasure  had  been  borne.  Already, 
in  his  earlier  youth,  when  his  vast  powers  had  been  sud- 
denly revealed  to  him  and  to  the  world,  he  had  had  wise 
counsel  from  such  men  as  Watts  and  Doddridge  against 
some  of  his  perils.     Watts  warned  him  against  his  super- 

1  The  critical  historian  has  the  unusual  satisfaction,  at  this  point,  of  finding 
a  gauge  by  which  to  discount  the  large  round  numbers  given  in  Whitefield's 
journal.  He  speaks  of  preaching  in  the  Old  South  Church  to  six  thousand 
persons.  The  now  venerable  building  had  at  that  time  a  seating  capacity  of 
about  twelve  hundred.  Alaking  the  largest  allowance  for  standing-room,  we 
may  estimate  his  actual  audience  at  two  thousand.  Whitefield  was  an  honest 
man,  but  sixty-six  per  cent,  is  not  too  large  a  discount  to  make  from  his  figures  ; 
his  estimates  of  spiritual  effect  from  his  labor  are  liable  to  a  similar  deduction. 


TREASURE  IN  EARTHEN   VESSELS.  1 69 

stition  of  trusting  to  "  impressions  "  assumed  to  be  divine  ; 
and  Doddridge  pronounced  him  "  an  honest  man,  but 
weak,  and  a  little  intoxicated  with  popularity,"  1  But  no 
human  strength  could  stand  against  the  adulation  that 
everywhere  attended  him.  His  vain  conceit  was  continu- 
ally betraying  him  into  indiscretions,  which  he  was  ever 
quick  to  expiate  by  humble  acknowledgment.  At  North- 
ampton he  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  beauty  of 
holiness  in  Edwards  and  his  wife;  and  he  listened  with 
deference  to  the  cautions  of  that  wise  counselor  against 
his  faith  in  "impressions"  and  against  his  censorious 
judgments  of  other  men  as  "  unconverted  "  ;  but  it  seemed 
to  the  pastor  that  his  guest  "  liked  him  not  so  well  for 
opposing  these  things." 

The  faults  of  Whitefield  were  intensified  to  a  hateful 
degree  in  some  of  his  associates  and  followers.  Leaving 
Boston,  he  sent,  to  succeed  to  his  work,  Gilbert  Tennent, 
then  glowing  with  the  heat  of  his  noted  Nottingham  ser- 
mon on  "An  Unconverted  Ministry."  At  once  men's 
minds  began  to  be  divided.  On  the  one  hand,  so  wise 
and  sober  a  critic  as  Thomas  Prince,  listening  with  severe 
attention,  gave  his  strong  and  unreserved  approval  to  the 
preaching  and  demeanor  of  Tennent. 2  At  the  other  ex- 
treme, we  have  such  testimony  as  this  from  Dr.  Timothy 
Cutler,  the  former  rector  of  Yale  College,  now  the  Episco- 
palian minister  of  Boston : 

"  It  would  be  an  endless  attempt  to  describe  that  scene 
of  confusion  and  disturbance  occasioned  by  him  [White- 
field]  :  the  division  of  families,  neighborhoods,  and  towns, 
the  contrariety  of  husbands  and  wives,  the  undutifulness 
of  children  and  servants,  the  quarrels  among  teachers,  the 
disorders  of  the  night,  the  intermission  of  labor  and  busi- 

1  Tracy,  "  Great  Awakening,"  p.  51. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  1 14-120. 


1 70  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xi. 

ness,  the  neglect  of  husbandry  and  of  gathering  the  har- 
vest. ...  In  many  conventicles  and  places  of  rendezvous 
there  has  been  checkered  work  indeed,  several  preaching 
and  several  exhorting  and  praying  at  the  same  tim.e,  the 
rest  crying  or  laughing,  yelping,  sprawling,  fainting,  and 
this  revel  maintained  in  some  places  many  days  and  nights 
together  without  intermission ;  and  then  there  were  tlie 
blessed  outpourings  of  the  Spirit!  .  .  ,  After  him  came 
one  Tennent,  a  monster!  impudent  and  noisy,  and  told 
them  they  were  all  damn'd,  damn'd,  damn'd  ;  this  charmed 
them,  and  in  the  most  dreadful  winter  I  ever  saw  people 
wallowed  in  the  snow  night  and  day  for  the  benefit  of  his 
beastly  brayings,  and  many  ended  their  days  under  these 
fatigues.  Both  of  them  carried  more  money  out  of  these 
parts  than  the  poor  could  be  thankful  for."  ^ 

This  is  in  a  tone  of  bitter  sectarian  railing.  But,  after 
all,  the  main  allegations  in  it  are  sustained  by  the  ample 
evidence  produced  by  Dr.  Charles  Chauncy,  pastor  of  the 
First  Church  in  Boston,  in  his  serious  and  weighty  volume 
of  "  Seasonable  Thoughts  on  the  State  of  Religion  in  New 
England,"  published  in  1743,  as  he  sincerely  says,  "to 
serve  the  interests  of  Christ's  kingdom,"  and  "faithfully 
pointing  out  the  things  of  a  bad  and  dangerous  tendency 
in  the  late  and  present  religious  appearance  in  the  land." 
Dr.  Chauncy  was  doubtless  included  in  the  sweeping  de- 
nunciation of  the  Christian  ministry  in  general  as  "  un- 
converted," "  Pharisees,"  "  hypocrites."  And  yet  it  does 
not  appear  in  historical  evidence  that  Chauncy  was  not 
every  whit  as  good  a  Christian  as  Tennent  or  Whitefield. 

The  excesses  of  the  revival  went  on  from  bad  to  worse. 
They  culminated,  at  last,  in  the  frenzy  of  poor  James 
Davenport,  great-grandson  of  the  venerable  founder  of 
New  Haven,  who,  under  the  control  of  "  impressions  "  and 

1  Letter  of  September  24,  1743,  quoted  in  McConnell,  "American  Epis- 
copal Church,"  p.  142,  note. 


THE  REVIVAL   RUNS    WILD.  1 71 

"  impulses "  and  texts  of  Scripture  "  borne  in  upon  his 
mind,"  abandoned  his  Long  Island  parish,  a  true  allotrio- 
episcopos,  to  thrust  himself  uninvited  into  the  parishes  of 
other  ministers,  denouncing  the  pastor  as  "  unconverted  " 
and  adjuring  the  people  to  desert  both  pastor  and  church. 
Like  some  other  self-appointed  itinerants  and  exhorters  cf 
the  time,  he  seemed  bent  upon  schism,  as  if  this  were  thi 
great  end  of  preaching.  Being  invited  to  New  London  to 
assist  in  organizing  a  Separatist  church,  he  "  published 
the  messages  which  he  said  he  received  from  the  Spirit 
in  dreams  and  otherwise,  importing  the  great  necessity  of 
mortification  and  contempt  of  the  world ;  and  made  them 
believe  that  they  must  put  away  from  them  everything 
that  they  delighted  in,  to  avoid  the  heinous  sin  of  idolatry 
— that  wigs,  cloaks  and  breeches,  hoods,  gowns,  rings, 
jewels,  and  necklaces,  must  be  all  brought  together  into 
one  heap  into  his  chamber,  that  they  might  by  his  solemn 
decree  be  committed  to  the  flames."  On  the  .Sabbath 
afternoon  the  pile  was  publicly  burned  amid  songs  and 
shouts.  In  the  pile  were  many  favorite  books  of  devotion, 
including  works  of  Flavel,  Beveridge,  Henry,  and  like 
venerated  names,  and  the  sentence  was  announced  with  a 
loud  voice,  "  that  the  smoke  of  the  torments  of  such  of  the 
authors  of  the  above-said  books  as  died  in  the  same  belief 
as  when  they  set  them  out  was  now  ascending  in  hell,  in 
like  manner  as  they  saw  the  smoke  of  these  books  arise."  ^ 
The  public  fever  and  delirium  was  passing  its  crisis.  A 
little  more  than  a  year  from  this  time,  Davenport,  who 
had  been  treated  by  his  brethren  with  much  forbearance 
and  had  twice  been  released  from  public  process  as  non 
compos  mentis,  recovered  his  reason  at  the  same  time  with 
his  bodily  health,  and  published  an  unreserved  and  affec- 
tionate acknowledgment  of  the  wrong  that  he  had  done 
1  Chauncy,  "  Seasonable  Thoughts,"  pp.  220-223. 


172  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xi. 

under  the  influence  of  a  spirit  of  delusion  which  he  had 
mistaken  for  the  Spirit  of  truth.  Those  who  had  gone 
furthest  with  him  in  his  excesses  returned  to  a  more  sober 
and  brotherly  mind,  and  soon  no  visible  trace  remained  of 
the  wild  storm  of  enthusiasm  that  had  swept  over  New 
England,  except  a  few  languishing  schisms  in  country 
towns  of  Connecticut. 

As  in  the  middle  colonies,  the  revival  had  brought 
division  in  New  England.  But,  after  the  New  England 
fashion,  it  was  division  merely  into  ways  of  thinking,  not 
into  sects.  Central  in  the  agitated  scene  is  the  calm 
figure  of  Edwards,  uniting  the  faith  and  zeal  of  an  apostle 
with  the  acuteness  of  a  philosopher,  and  applying  the 
exquisite  powers  of  his  intellect  to  discriminate  between  a 
divine  work  and  its  human  or  Satanic  admixtures,  and 
between  true  and  spurious  religious  affections.  He  won 
the  blessing  of  the  peacemaker.  When  half  a  generation 
had  passed  there  had  not  ceased,  indeed,  to  be  differences 
of  opinion,  but  there  was  none  left  to  defend  the  wild 
extravagances  which  the  very  authors  of  them  lamented, 
and  there  was  none  to  deny,  in  face  of  the  rich  and  en- 
during fruits  of  the  revival,  that  the  power  of  God  had 
been  present  in  it.  In  the  twenty  years  ending  in  1760 
the  number  of  the  New  England  churches  had  been  in- 
creased by  one  hundred  and  fifty. ^ 

In  the  middle  colonies  there  had  been  like  progress. 
The  Presbyterian  ministry  had  increased  from  forty-five 
to  more  than  a  hundred ;  and  the  increase  had  been  wholly 
on  the  "  New  Side."  An  early  move  of  the  conservative 
party,  to  require  a  degree  from  a  British  or  a  New  Eng- 
land college  as  a  condition  of  license  to  preach,  was 
promptly  recognized  as  intended  to  exclude  the  fervid 
students  from  the  Log  College.    It  was  met  by  the  organi- 

1  Tracy,  "  Great  Awakening,"  p.  389. 


LASTJXG   FKL'ITS   OF  RLVIl'AL.  173 

zation  of  Princeton  College,  whose  influence,  more  New 
Englandish  than  New  England,  directed  by  a  succession 
of  illustrious  Yale  graduates  in  full  sympathy  with  the 
advanced  theology  of  the  revival,  was  counted  on  to  with- 
stand the  more  cautious  orthodoxy  of  Yale.  In  this  and 
other  ways  the  Presbyterian  schism  fell  out  to  the  further- 
ance of  the  gospel. 

In  Virginia  the  quickening  was  as  when  the  wind 
breathed  in  the  valley  of  dry  bones.  The  story  of  Samuel 
i^.Iorris  and  his  unconscious  mission,  although  authentic 
fact;  belongs  with  the  very  romance  of  evangelism.^  White- 
held  and  "  One-eyed  Robinson,"  and  at  last  Samuel  Davies, 
came  to  his  aid.  The  deadly  exclusiveness  of  the  inert 
Virginia  establishment  was  broken  up,  and  the  gospel  had 
free  course.  The  Presbyterian  Church,  which  had  at  first 
been  looked  on  as  an  exotic  sect  that  might  be  tolerated 
out  on  the  western  frontier,  after  a  brief  struggle  with  the 
Act  of  Uniformity  maintained  its  right  to  live  and  struck 
vigorous  root  in  the  soil.  The  effect  of  the  Awakening 
was  felt  in  the  establishment  itself.  Devereux  Jarratt,  a 
convert  of  the  revival,  went  to  England  for  ordination,  and 
returned  to  labor  for  the  resuscitation  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  in  his  native  State.  "  To  him,  and  such  as  he,  the 
first  workings  of  the  renewed  energy  of  the  church  in 
Virginia  are  to  be  traced."  - 

An  even  more  important  result  of  the  Awakening  was 
the  swift  and  wide  extension  of  Baptist  principles  and 
churches.  This  was  altogether  logical.  The  revival  had 
come,  not  so  much  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elijah,  turn- 
ing to  each  other  the  hearts  of  fathers  and  of  children,  as 
in  the  spirit  of  Ezekiel,  the  preacher  of  individual  respon- 
sibility and  duty.     The  temper  of  the  revival  was  wholly 

1  See  the  autobiographical  narrative  in  Tracy,  p.  377. 

2  Tiffany,  "  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,"  p.  45. 


174  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xi. 

congenial  with  the  strong  individualism  of  the  Baptist 
churches.  The  Separatist  churches  formed  in  New  Eng- 
land by  the  withdrawal  of  revival  enthusiasts  from  the 
parish  churches  in  many  instances  became  Baptist.  Cases 
of  individual  conversion  to  Baptist  views  were  frequent, 
and  the  earnestness  with  which  the  new  opinion  was  held 
approved  itself  not  only  by  debating  and  proselyting,  but 
by  strenuous  and  useful  evangelizing.  Especially  at  the 
South,  from  Virginia  to  Georgia,  the  new  preachers,  enter- 
ing into  the  labors  of  the  annoyed  and  persecuted  pioneers 
of  their  communion,  won  multitudes  of  converts  to  the 
Christian  faith,  from  the  neglected  populations,  both  black 
and  white,  and  gave  to  the  Baptist  churches  a  lasting 
preeminence  in  numbers  among  the  churches  of  the  South. 
Throughout  the  country  the  efTect  of  this  vigorous  propa- 
gation of  rival  sects  openly,  in  the  face  of  whatever  there 
was  of  church  establishment,  settled  this  point :  that  the 
law  of  American  States,  by  whomsoever  administered, 
must  sooner  or  later  be  the  law  of  liberty  and  equality 
among  the  various  religious  communions.  In  the  southern 
colonies,  the  empty  shell  of  a  church  establishment  had 
crumbled  on  contact  with  the  serious  earnestness  of  the 
young  congregations  gathered  by  the  Presbyterian  and 
Baptist  evangehsts.  In  New  England,  where  estabhshment 
was  in  the  form  of  an  attempt  by  the  people  of  the  com- 
monwealth to  confirm  the  people  of  each  town  in  the 
maintenance  of  common  worship  according  to  their  con- 
science and  judgment,  the  "  standing  order "  had  solid 
strength ;  but  when  it  was  attempted  by  public  authority 
to  curb  the  liberty  of  a  considerable  minority  conscien- 
tiously intent  on  secession,  the  reins  were  ready  to  break. 
It  soon  came  to  be  recognized  that  the  only  preeminence 
the  parish  churches  could  permanently  hold  was  that  of 
being  "  servants  of  all." 


J./ 


DIVISION  AND    UNITY.  I  75 

With  equal  and  unlimited  liberty,  was  to  follow,  as  a 
prevailing  characteristic  of  American  Christianity,  a  large 
diversity  of  organization.  Not  only  that  men  disagreeing 
in  their  convictions  of  truth  would  be  enrolled  in  different 
bodies,  but  that  men  holding  the  same  views,  in  the  same 
statement  of  them,  would  feel  free  to  go  apart  from  one 
another,  and  stay  apart.  There  was  not  even  to  be  any 
one  generally  predominating  organization  from  which 
minor  ones  should  be  reckoned  as  dissenting.  One  after 
another  the  organizations  which  should  be  tempted  by 
some  period  of  exceptional  growth  and  prosperity  to  pre- 
tend to  a  hegemony  among  the  churches — Catholic,  Epis- 
copalian, Presbyterian,  Baptist,  Methodist — would  meet 
with  some  set-back  as  inexorable  as  "  the  law  of  nature 
that  prevents  the  trees  from  growing  up  into  the  sky." 

By  a  curious  paradox,  the  same  spiritual  agitation  which 
deepened  the  divisions  of  the  American  church  aroused  in 
the  colonies  the  consciousness  of  a  national  religious  unity. 
We  have  already  seen  that  in  the  period  before  the  Awak- 
ening the  sole  organ  of  fellowship  reaching  through  the 
whole  chain  of  the  British  colonies  was  the  correspondence 
of  the  Quaker  meetings  and  missionaries.  In  the  glow  of 
the  revival  the  continent  awoke  to  the  consciousness  of  a 
common  spiritual  life.  Ranging  the  continent  literally 
from  Georgia  to  Maine,  with  all  his  weaknesses  and  in- 
discretions, and  with  his  incomparable  eloquence,  welcomed 
by  every  sect,  yet  refusing  an  exclusive  allegiance  to  any, 
Whitefield  exercised  a  true  apostolate,  bearing  daily  the 
care  of  all  the  churches,  and  becoming  a  messenger  of 
mutual  fellowship  not  only  between  the  ends  of  the  con- 
tinent, but  between  the  Christians  of  two  hemispheres. 
Remote  churches  exchanged  offices  of  service.  Tennent 
came  from  New  Jersey  to  labor  in  New  England ;  Dickin- 
son and  Burr  and  Edwards  were  the  gift  of  the  northern 


176  AMERICAN  CHRiSTlAA'ITY.  [Chap.  xt. 

colonies  to  the  college  at  Princeton,  The  quickened  sense 
of  a  common  religious  life  and  duty  and  destiny  was  no 
small  part  of  the  preparation  for  the  birth  of  the  future 
nation. 

Whether  for  good  or  for  evil,  the  few  years  from  1 740 
to  1750  were  destined  to  impress  upon  the  American 
church  in  its  various  orders,  for  a  hundred  years  to  come, 
the  character  of  Methodism} 

In  New  England,  the  idea,  into  which  the  first  pastors 
had  been  trained  by  their  experience  as  parish  ministers  in 
the  English  established  church,  of  the  parochial  church 
holding  correlative  rights  and  duties  toward  the  commu- 
nity in  all  its  families,  succumbed  at  last,  after  a  hundred 
years  of  more  or  less  conscious  antagonism,  to  the  incom- 
patible principle,  adopted  from  the  Separatists  of  Plymouth, 
of  the  church  formed  according  to  elective  affinity  by  the 
"  social  compact "  of  persons  of  the  age  of  discretion  who 
could  give  account  to  themselves  and  to  one  another  of  the 
conscious  act  and  experience  of  conversion.  This  view, 
subject  to  important  mitigations  or  aggravations  in  actual 
administration,  held  almost  unquestioned  dominance  in 
the  New  England  churches  until  boldly  challenged  by 
Horace  Bushnell,  in  his  "  epoch-making "  volume  on 
"Christian  Nurture"  (1846),  as  a  departure  from  the 
orthodoxy  of  the  fatheis. 

In  the  Presbyterian  Church,  revivalism  as  a  principle  of 
church  life  had  to  contend  with  rules  distinctly  articu- 
lated in  its  constitutional  documents.  So  exclusively  does 
the  Westminster  institute  contemplate  the  church  as  an 
established  parish  that  its  "  Directory  for  Worship  "  con- 

1  "  The  Great  Awakening  .  .  .  terminated  the  Puritan  and  inaugurated 
the  Pietist  or  Methodist  age  of  American  church  history  "  (Thompson,  "  Pres- 
byterian Churches  in  the  United  States,"  p.  34).  It  is  not  unnecessary  to 
remark  that  the  word  "Methodist"  is  not  used  in  the  narrow  sense  of 
"  Wesleyan." 


Methodism  ix  all  sects.  fj)- 

tains  no  provision  for  so  abnormal  an  incident  as  the 
baptism  of  an  adult,  and  all  baptized  children  growing  up 
and  not  being  of  scandalous  life  are  to  be  welcomed  to  the 
Lord's  Supper.  It  proves  the  immense  power  of  the 
Awakening,  that  this  rigid  and  powerful  organization,  of  a 
people  tenacious  of  its  traditions  to  the  point  of  obstinacy, 
should  have  swung  so  completely  free  at  this  point,  not 
only  of  its  long-settled  usages,  but  of  the  distinct  letter  of 
its  standards. 

The  Episcopal  Church  of  the  colonies  was  almost  forced 
into  an  attitude  of  opposition  to  the  revival.  The  un- 
speakable folly  of  the  English  bishops  in  denouncing  and 
silencing  the  most  effective  preachers  in  the  national  church 
had  betrayed  Whitefield  into  his  most  easily  besetting  sin, 
that  of  censorious  judgment,  and  his  sweeping  counter- 
denunciations  of  the  Episcopalian  clergy  in  general  as 
unconverted  closed  to  him  many  hearts  and  pulpits  that 
at  first  had  been  hospitably  open  to  him.  Being  human, 
they  came  into  open  antagonism  to  him  and  to  the  revival. 
From  the  protest  against  extravagance  and  disorder,  it 
was  a  short  and  perilously  easy  step  to  the  rejection  of 
religious  fervor  and  earnestness.  The  influence  of  the 
mother  church  of  that  dreary  period  and  the  influence  of 
the  official  rings  around  every  royal  governor  were  all  too 
potent  in  the  same  direction.  The  Propagation  Society's 
missionaries  boasted,  with  reason,  of  large  accessions  of 
proselytes  alienated  from  other  churches  by  their  distaste 
for  the  methods  of  the  revival.  The  effect  on  the  Episcopal 
Church  itself  was  in  some  respects  unhappy.  It  "  lowered 
a  spiritual  temperature  already  too  low,"  ^  and  weakened 
the  moral  influence  of  the  church,  and  the  value  of  its 

1  Unpublished  lectures  of  the  Rev.  VV.  G.  Andrews  on  "  The  Evangelical 
Revival  of  1740  and  American  Episcopalians."  It  is  much  to  be  hoped  that 
these  valuable  studies  of  the  critical  period  of  American  church  history  may 
not  long  remain  unpublished. 


178  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xi. 

testimony  to  important  principles  which  there  were  few 
besides  efficiently  to  represent — the  duty  of  the  church 
not  to  disown  or  shut  out  those  of  Httle  faith,  and  the 
church's  duty  toward  its  children.  Never  in  the  history 
of  the  church  have  the  Lord's  husbandmen  shown  a 
fiercer  zeal  for  rooting  up  tares,  regardless  of  damage  to 
the  wheat,  than  was  shown  by  the  preachers  of  the 
Awakening.  Never  was  there  a  wider  application  of  the 
reproach  against  those  who,  instead  of  preaching  to  men 
that  they  should  be  converted  and  become  as  little  chil- 
dren, preach  to  children  that  they  must  be  converted  and 
become  like  grown  folks. ^  The  attitude  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  at  that  period  was  not  altogether  admirable ;  but 
it  is  nothing  to  its  dishonor  that  it  bore  the  reproach  of 
being  a  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners,  and  offered  itself 
as  a  refugium  peccatoriun,  thus  holding  many  in  some  sort 
of  relation  to  the  kingdom  of  Christ  w^ho  would  otherwise 
have  lapsed  into  sheer  infidelity. 

In  all  this  the  Episcopal  Church  was  affected  by  the 
Awakening  only  by  way  of  reaction.  But  it  owes  a  debt 
to  the  direct  influence  of  the  Awakening  which  it  has  not 
always  been  careful  to  acknowledge.  We  have  already 
seen  that  the  requickening  of  the  asphyxiated  church  of 
Virginia  was  part  of  the  great  revival,  and  this  character 
remains  impressed  on  that  church  to  this  day.  The  best 
of  those  traits  by  which  the  American  Episcopal  Church 
is  distinguished  from  the  Church  of  England,  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  greater  purity  of  the  ministry  and  of  the 
membership,  are  family  traits  of  the  revival  churches;  the 
most  venerated  of  its  early  bishops,  White  and  Griswold, 

1  This  sharp  antithesis  is  quoted  at  second  hand  from  Charles  Kingsley. 
The  stories  of  little  children  frightened  into  screaming,  and  then  dragged  (at 
four  years  of  rj^e,  sn.vs  Jonathan  Edwards)  through  the  agitating  vicissitudes 
of  a  "  revival  experience,"  occupy  some  of  the  most  pathetic,  not  to  say 
tragical,  pages  of  the  history  of  the  Awakening. 


REVIVAL  AND  MISSIONS.  I  79 

bore  the  same  family  likeness;  and  the  "Evangelical 
party,"  for  a  time  so  influential  in  its  counsels,  was  a  tardy 
and  mild  afterglow  from  the  setting  of  the  Great  Awak- 
ening.i 

An  incident  of  the  revival,  failing  which  it  would  have 
lacked  an  essential  token  of  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  of 
Christ,  was  the  kindling  of  zeal  for  communicating  the 
gospel  to  the  ignorant,  the  neglected,  and  the  heathen. 
Among  the  first-fruits  of  Whitefield's  preaching  at  the 
South  was  a  practical  movement  among  the  planters  for 
the  instruction  of  their  slaves — devotees,  most  of  them,  of 
the  most  abject  fetich-worship  of  their  native  continent. 
Of  the  evangelists  and  pastors  most  active  in  the  revival, 
there  were  few,  either  North  or  South,  whose  letters  or 
journals  do  not  report  the  drawing  into  the  churches  of 
large  numbers  of  negroes  and  Indians,  whose  daily  lives 
witnessed  to  the  sincerity  of  their  profession  of  repentance 
and  Christian  faith.  The  Indian  population  of  the  south- 
eastern corner  of  Connecticut  with  such  accord  received 
the  gospel  at  the  hands  of  the  evangelists  that  heathenism 
seemed  extinct  among  them.^ 

Among  the  first  trophies  of  the  revival  at  Norwich  was 
a  Mohegan  boy  named  Samson  Occum.  Wheelock,  pastor 
at  Lebanon,  one  of  the  most  ardent  of  the  revival  preachers, 
took  him  into  his  family  as  a  student.  This  was  the  be- 
ginning of  that  school  for  the  training  of  Indian  preachers 
which,  endowed  in  part  with  funds  gathered  by  Occum 
in  England,  grew  at  last  into  Dartmouth  College.  The 
choicest  spiritual  gifts  at  the  disposal  of  the  church  were 
freely  spent  on  the  missions.  Whitefield  visited  the  school 
and  the  field,  and  sped  Kirkland  on  his  way  to  the  Oneidas. 
Edwards,  leaving  Northampton  in  sorrow  of  heart,  gave 

1  McConnell,  pp.  144-146;  W.  G.  Andrews,  Lecture  III. 

2  Tracy,  pp.  187-192. 


1 80  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xi. 

his  incomparable  powers  to  the  work  of  the  gospel  among 
the  Stockbridge  Indians  until  summoned  thence  to  the 
presidency  of  Princeton  College.  When  Brainerd  fainted 
under  his  burden,  it  was  William  Tennent  who  went  out 
into  the  wilderness  to  carry  on  the  work  of  harvest.  But 
the  great  gift  of  the  American  church  to  the  cause  of 
missions  was  the  gift  of  David  Brainerd  himself.  His  life 
was  the  typical  missionary's  life — the  scattering  of  precious 
seed  with  tears,  the  heart-sickness  of  hope  deferred,  at  last 
the  rejoicing  of  the  harvest-home.  His  early  death  en- 
rolled him  in  the  canon  of  the  saints  of  modern  Christen- 
dom. The  story  of  his  life  and  death,  written  by  Jonathan 
Edwards  out  of  that  fatherly  love  with  which  he  had 
tended  the  young  man's  latest  days  and  hours,  may  not 
have  been  an  unmixed  blessing  to  the  church.  The  long- 
protracted  introspections,  the  cherished  forebodings  and 
misgivings,  as  if  doubt  was  to  be  cultivated  as  a  Christian 
virtue,  may  not  have  been  an  altogether  wholesome  ex- 
ample for  general  imitation.  But  think  what  the  story  of 
that  short  life  has  wrought !  To  how  many  hearts  it  has 
been  an  inspiration  to  self-sacrifice  and  devotion  to  the 
service  of  God  in  the  service  of  man,  we  cannot  know. 
Along  one  line  its  influence  can  be  partly  traced.  The 
"  Life  of  David  Brainerd  "  made  Henry  Martyn  a  mis- 
sionary to  the  heathen.  As  spiritual  father  to  Henry 
Martyn,  Brainerd  may  be  reckoned,  in  no  unimportant 
sense,  to  be  the  father  of  modern  missions  to  the  heathen. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

CLOSE  OF  THE  COLONIAL   ERA — THE    GERMAN 

CHURCHES — THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE 

METHODIST  CHURCH. 

The  quickening  of  religious  feeling,  the  deepening  of 
religious  conviction,  the  clearing  and  defining  of  theologi- 
cal opinions,  that  were  incidental  to  the  Great  Avi^akening, 
were  a  preparation  for  more  than  thirty  years  of  intense 
political  and  warlike  agitation.  The  churches  suffered 
from  the  long  distraction  of  the  public  mind,  and  at  the 
end  of  it  were  faint  and  exhausted.  But  for  the  infusion 
of  a  "  more  abundant  life  "  which  they  had  received,  it 
would  seem  that  they  could  hardly  have  survived  the 
stress  of  that  stormy  and  revolutionary  period. 

The  religious  life  of  this  period  was  manifested  in  part 
in  the  growth  of  the  New  England  theology.  The  great 
leader  of  this  school  of  theological  inquiry,  the  elder  Ed- 
wards, was  born  at  the  opening  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  oldest  and  most  eminent  of  his  disciples  and  successors, 
Bellamy  and  Hopkins,  were  born  respectively  in  1719  and 
1 72 1,  and  entered  into  the  work  of  the  Awakening  in  the 
flush  of  their  earliest  manhood.  A  long  dynasty  of  acute 
and  strenuous  argumentators  has  continued,  through  suc- 
cessive generations  to  the  present  day,  this  distinctly 
American  school  of  theological  thought.  This  is  not  the 
181 


1 82  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xil. 

place  for  tracing  the  intricate  history  of  their  discussions,^ 
but  the  story  of  the  Awakening  could  not  be  told  without 
some  mention  of  this  its  attendant  and  sequel. 

Not  less  notable  than  the  new  theology  of  the  revival 
was  the  new  psalmody.  In  general  it  may  be  said  that 
every  flood-tide  of  spiritual  emotion  in  the  church  leaves 
its  high- water  mark  in  the  form  of  "  new  songs  to  the 
Lord  "  that  remain  after  the  tide  of  feeling  has  assuaged. 
In  this  instance  the  new  songs  were  not  produced  by  the 
revival,  but  only  adopted  by  it.  It  is  not  easy  for  us  at 
this  day  to  conceive  the  effect  that  must  have  been  pro- 
duced in  the  Christian  communities  of  America  by  the 
advent  of  Isaac  Watts's  marvelous  poetic  work,  "  The 
Psalms  of  David  Imitated  in  the  Language  of  the  New 
Testament."  Important  religious  results  have  more  than 
once  followed  in  the  church  on  the  publication  of  religious 
poems — notably,  in  our  own  century,  on  the  publication 
of  "The  Christian  Year."  But  no  other  instance  of  the 
kind  is  comparable  with  the  publication  in  America  of 
Watts's  Psalms.  When  we  remember  how  scanty  were 
the  resources  of  religious  poetry  in  American  homes  in 
the  early  eighteenth  century,  and  especially  how  rude  and 
even  grotesque  the  rhymes  that  served  in  the  various 
churches  as  a  vehicle  of  worship,  it  seems  that  the  coming 
of  those  melodious  stanzas,  in  which  the  meaning  of  one 
poet  is  largely  interpreted  by  the  sympathetic  insight  of 
another  poet,  and  the  fervid  devotion  of  the  Old  Testament 
is  informed  with  the  life  and  transfigured  in  the  language 
of  the  New,  must  have  been  like  a  glow  of  sunlight  break- 

1  See  G.  p.  Fisher,  "  History  of  Christian  Doctrine,"  pp.  394-418;  also 
E.  A.  Park  in  the  "  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopedia,"  vol.  iii.,  pp.  1634-38.  The 
New  England  theology  is  not  so  called  as  being  confined  to  New  England. 
Its  leading  "  improvements  on  Calvinism  "  were  accepted  by  Andrew  Fuller 
and  Robert  Hall  among  the  English  Baptists,  and  by  Chalmers  of  the  Pres- 
byterians of  Scotland. 


PSALMODY  OF  THE  AWAKENING.  1 83 

ing  in  upon  a  gray  and  cloudy  day.  Few  pages  of  biog- 
raphy can  be  found  more  vividly  illustrative  of  the  times 
and  the  men  than  the  page  in  which  Samuel  Hopkins 
recites  the  story  of  the  sufferings  of  his  own  somber  and 
ponderous  mind  under  the  rebuke  of  his  college  friend 
David  Brainerd.  He  walked  his  soHtary  room  in  tears, 
and  (he  says)  "  took  up  Watts's  version  of  the  Psalms,  and 
opened  it  at  the  Fifty- first  Psalm,  and  read  the  first,  sec- 
ond, and  third  parts  in  long  meter  with  strong  affections, 
and  made  it  all  my  own  language,  and  thought  it  was  the 
language  of  my  heart  to  God."  There  was  more  than  the 
experience  of  a  great  and  simple  soul,  there  was  the  germ 
of  a  future  system  of  theology,  in  the  penitential  confession 
which  the  young  student  "  made  his  own  language,"  and 
in  the  exquisite  lines  which,  under  the  figure  of  a  fright- 
ened bird,  became  the  utterance  of  his  first  tremulous  and 
faltering  faith : 

Lord,  should  thy  judgment  grow  severe, 
I  am  condemned,  but  thou  art  clear. 

Should  sudden  vengeance  seize  my  breath, 
I  must  pronounce  thee  just  in  death; 
And  if  my  soul  were  sent  to  hell, 
Thy  righteous  law  approves  it  well. 

Yet  save  a  trembhng  sinner,  Lord, 
Whose  hope,  still  hovering  round  thy  word, 
Would  light  on  some  sweet  promise  there. 
Some  sure  support  against  despair. 

The  introduction  of  the  new  psalmody  was  not  accom- 
plished all  at  once,  nor  v.'ithout  a  struggle.  But  we 
gravely  mistake  if  we  look  upon  the  controversy  that  re- 
sulted in  the  adoption  of  Watts's  Psalms  as  a  mere  conflict 
between  enlightened  good  taste  and  stubborn  conservatism. 
The  action  proposed  was  revolutionary.  It  involved  the 
surrender  of  a  long-settled  principle  of  Puritanism.     At 


1 84  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xii. 

the  present  day  the  objection  to  the  use  of  "  human  com- 
posures "  in  pubhc  worship  is  unintelligible,  except  to 
Scotchmen.  In  the  later  Puritan  age  such  use  was  reck- 
oned an  infringement  on  the  entire  and  exclusive  authority 
and  sufficiency  of  the  Scriptures,  and  a  constructive  viola- 
tion of  the  second  commandment.  By  the  adoption  of  the 
new  psalmody  the  Puritan  and  Presbyterian  churches, 
perhaps  not  consciously,  but  none  the  less  actually,  yielded 
the  major  premiss  of  the  only  argument  by  which  liturgi- 
cal worship  was  condemned  on  principle.  Thereafter  the 
question  of  the  use  of  liturgical  forms  became  a  mere 
question  of  expediency.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  logical 
consequences  of  this  important  step  have  been  so  tardy 
and  hesitating. 

It  was  not  in  the  common  course  of  church  history  that 
the  period  under  consideration  should  be  a  period  of  vigor- 
ous internal  activity  and  development  in  the  old  settled 
churches  of  America.  The  deep,  often  excessive,  excite- 
ments of  the  Awakening  had  not  only  ceased,  but  had 
been  succeeded  by  intense  agitations  of  another  sort. 
Two  successive  "  French  and  Indian  "  wars  kept  the  long 
frontier,  at  a  time  when  there  was  little  besides  frontier  to 
the  British  colonies,  in  continual  peril  of  fire  and  scalping- 
knife.^    The  astonishingly  sudden  and  complete  extinction 

1  Of  what  sort  was  the  life  of  a  church  and  its  pastor  in  those  days  is  illus- 
trated in  extracts  from  the  journal  of  Samuel  Hopkins,  the  theologian,  pastor 
at  Great  Barrington,  given  in  the  Memoir  by  Professor  Park,  pp.  40-43. 
The  Sabbath  worship  was  disturbed  by  the  arrival  of  warlike  news.  The 
pastor  and  the  families  of  his  flock  were  driven  from  their  homes  to  take 
refuge  in  blockhouses  crowded  with  fugitives.  He  was  gone  nearly  three 
months  of  fall  and  winter  with  a  scouting  party  of  a  hundred  whites  and  nine- 
teen Indians  in  the  woods.  He  sent  off  the  fighting  men  of  his  town  with 
sermon  and  benediction  on  an  expedition  to  Canada.  During  the  second  war 
he  writes  to  his  friend  Bellamy  (1754)  of  a  dreadful  rumor  that  "  good  Mr. 
Edwards  "  had  perished  in  a  massacre  at  Stockbridge.  This  rumor  was  false, 
but  he  adds:  "  On  the  Lord's  day  p.m.,  as  I  was  reading  the  psalm,  news 
came  that  Stockbridge  was  beset  by  an  army  of  Indians,  and  on  fire,  which 


WARLIKE  AGITATIONS.  Z85 

of  the  French  politico-religious  empire  in  Canada  and  the 
West  made  possible,  and  at  no  remote  time  inevitable,  the 
separation  of  the  British  colonies  from  the  mother  country 
and  the  contentions  and  debates  that  led  into  the  Revolu- 
tionary War  began  at  once. 

Another  consequence  of  the  prostrating  of  the  French 
power  in  America  has  been  less  noticed  by  historians,  but 
the  course  of  this  narrative  will  not  be  followed  far  without 
its  becoming  manifest  as  not  less  momentous  in  its  bear- 
ing on  the  future  history  of  the  church.  The  extinction  of 
the  French- Catholic  power  in  America  made  possible  the 
later  plantation  and  large  and  free  development  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  the  territory  of  the  United  States. 
After  that  event  the  Catholic  resident  or  citizen  was  no 
longer  subject  to  the  suspicion  of  being  a  sympathizer 
with  a  hostile  neighboring  power,  and  the  Jesuit  mission- 
ary was  no  longer  liable  to  be  regarded  as  a  political  in- 
triguer and  a  conspirator  with  savage  assassins  against  the 
Hves  of  innocent  settlers  and  their  families.  If  there  are 
those  who,  reading  the  earlier  pages  of  this  volume,  have 
mourned  over  the  disappointment  and  annihilation  of  two 
magnificent  schemes  of  Catholic  domination  on  the  North 
American  continent  as  being  among  the  painful  mysteries 
of  divine  providence,  they  may  find  compensation  for 
these  catastrophes  in  later  advances  of  Catholicism,  which 
without  these  antecedents  would  seem  to  have  been  hardly 
possible. 

broke  up  the  assembly  in  an  instant.  All  were  put  into  the  utmost  conster- 
nation— men,  women,  and  children  crying,  '  What  shall  we  do?  '  Not  a  gun 
to  defend  us,  not  a  fort  to  flee  to,  and  few  guns  and  little  ammunition  in  the 
place.  Some  ran  one  way  and  some  another ;  but  the  general  course  was  to 
the  southward,  especially  for  women  and  children.  Women,  children,  and 
squaws  presently  flocked  in  upon  us  from  Stockbridge,  half  naked  and  frighted 
almost  to  death  ;  and  fresh  news  came  that  the  enemy  were  on  the  plains  this 
side  Stockbridge,  shooting  and  killing  and  scalping  people  as  they  fled.  Some 
presently  came  along  bloody,  with  news  that  they  saw  persons  killed  and 
scalped,  which  raised  a  consternation,  tumult,  and  distress  inexpressible." 


1 86  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xii. 

Although  the  spiritual  development  of  the  awakened 
American  churches,  after  the  Awakening  until  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  States  was  established  and  acknowledged, 
was  limited  by  these  great  hindrances,  this  period  was 
one  of  momentous  influences  from  abroad  upon  American 
Christianity. 

The  Scotch-Irish  immigration  kept  gathering  volume 
and  force.  The  great  stream  of  immigrants  entering  at 
the  port  of  Philadelphia  and  flowing  westward  and  south- 
westward  was  joined  by  a  tributary  stream  entering  at 
Charleston.  Not  only  the  numbers  of  this  people,  occu- 
pying in  force  the  hill-country  from  Pennsylvania  to 
Georgia,  but  still  more  its  extraordinary  qualities  and  the 
discipline  of  its  history,  made  it  a  factor  of  prime  impor- 
tance in  the  events  of  the  times  just  before  and  just  after 
the  achievement  of  the  national  independence.  For  gen- 
erations it  had  been  schooled  to  the  apprehension  and 
acceptance  of  an  elaborately  articulated  system  of  theology 
and  church  order  as  of  divine  authority.  Its  prejudices 
and  animosities  were  quite  as  potent  as  its  principles.  Its 
fixed  hereditary  aversion  to  the  English  government  and 
the  English  church  was  the  natural  fruit  of  long  memories 
and  traditions  of  outrages  inflicted  by  both  these ;  its  in- 
fluence was  now  about  to  be  powerfully  manifested  in  the 
overthrow  of  the  English  power  and  its  feeble  church  es- 
tablishments in  the  colonies.  At  the  opening  of  the  War 
of  Independence  the  Presbyterian  Church,  reunited  since 
the  schism  of  1741,  numbered  one  hundred  and  seventy 
ministers  in  seventeen  presbyteries;  but  its  weight  of 
influence  was  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  numbers,  and 
this  entire  force,  not  altogether  at  unity  with  itself  on 
ecclesiastical  questions,  was  united  as  one  man  in  the 
maintenance  of  American  rights. 


TWO  IMMIGRATIONS.  1 87 

The  great  German  immigration  begins  to  flow  in  earnest 
in  this  period.  Three  successive  tides  of  migration  have 
set  from  Germany  to  America.  The  first  was  the  move- 
ment of  the  petty  sects  under  the  invitation  and  patronage 
of  William  Penn,  quartering  themselves  in  the  eastern 
parts  of  Pennsylvania.  The  second  was  the  transportation 
of  "the  Palatines,"  expatriated  by  stress  of  persecution 
and  war,  not  from  the  Rhenish  Palatinate  only,  but  from 
the  archduchy  of  Salzburg  and  from  other  parts  of  Ger- 
many and  Switzerland,  gathered  up  and  removed  to 
America,  some  of  them  directly,  some  by  way  of  England, 
as  an  act  of  political  charity  by  Queen  Anne's  government, 
with  the  idea  of  strengthening  the  colonies  by  planting 
Protestant  settlers  for  a  safeguard  against  Spanish  or 
French  aggressions.  The  third  tide  continues  flowing, 
with  variable  volume,  to  this  day.  It  is  the  voluntary 
flow  of  companies  of  individual  emigrants  seeking  to  better 
the  fortunes  of  themselves  or  their  families.  But  this 
voluntary  migration  has  been  unhealthily  and  sometimes 
dishonestly  stimulated,  from  the  beginning  of  it,  by  the 
selfish  interests  of  those  concerned  in  the  business  of 
transportation  or  in  the  sale  of  land.  It  seems  to  have 
been  mainly  the  greed  of  shipping  merchants,  at  first,  that 
spread  abroad  in  the  German  states  florid  announcements 
of  the  charms  and  riches  of  America,  decoying  multitudes 
of  ignorant  persons  to  risk  everything  on  these  represen- 
tations, and  to  mortgage  themselves  into  a  term  of  slavery 
until  they  should  have  paid  the  cost  of  their  passage  by 
their  labor.  This  class  of  bondmen,  called  "  redemp- 
tioners,"  made  no  inconsiderable  part  of  the  population  of 
the  middle  colonies ;  and  it  seems  to  have  been  a  worthy 
part.  The  trade  of  "  trepanning  "  the  unfortunates  and 
transporting  them  and  selling  their  term  of  service  was  not 
by  several  degrees  as  bad  as  the  African  slave-trade ;  but 


1 88  AMERICAN  CHRISTIAXITY.  [CliAf.  xii. 

it  was  of  the  same  sort,  and  the  deadly  horrors  of  its 
"  middle  passage  "  were  hardly  less. 

In  one  way  and  another  the  German  immigration  had 
grown  by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  great 
dimensions.  In  the  year  1749  twelve  thousand  Germans 
landed  at  the  port  of  Philadelphia.  In  general  they  were 
as  sheep  having  no  shepherd.  Their  deplorable  religious 
condition  was  owing  less  to  poverty  than  to  diversity  of 
sects.^  In  many  places  the  number  of  sects  rendered  con- 
certed action  impossible,  and  the  people  remained  destitute 
of  religious  instruction. 

The  famine  of  the  word  was  sorely  felt.  In  1733  three 
great  Lutheran  congregations  in  Pennsylvania,  numbering 
five  hundred  families  each,  sent  messengers  with  an  im- 
ploring petition  to  their  correligionists  at  London  and 
Halle,  representing  their  "  state  of  the  greatest  destitution." 
"  Our  own  means  "  (they  say)  "  are  utterly  insufficient  to 
effect  the  necessary  relief,  unless  God  in  his  mercy  may 
send  us  help  from  abroad.  It  is  truly  lamentable  to  think 
of  the  large  numbers  of  the  rising  generation  who  know 
not  their  right  hand  from  their  left;  and,  unless  help  be 
promptly  aflforded,  the  danger  is  great  that,  in  consequence 
of  the  great  lack  of  churches  and  schools,  the  most  of  them 
■will  be  led  into  the  ways  of  destructive  error." 

This  urgent  appeal  bore  fruit  like  the  apples  of  Sodom. 
It  resulted  in  a  painful  and  pitiable  correspondence  with 
the  chiefs  of  the  mother  church,  these  haggling  for  months 
and  years  over  stipulations  of  salary,  and  refusing  to  send 
a  minister  until  the  salary  should  be  pledged  in  cash ;  and 
their  correspondents  pleading  their  poverty  and  need.2 

1  Jacobs,  "The  Lutherans,"  pp.  191,  234;  Dubbs,  "German  Reformed 
Church,"  p.  271. 

2  See  extracts  from  the  correspondence  given  by  Dr. 'Jacobs,  pp.  193-195. 
Dr.  Jacobs's  suggestion  that  three  congregations  of  five  hundred  families 
each  might  among  them  have  raised  the  few  hundreds  a  year  retiuired  seems 


ZINZENDORF  IN  AMERICA.  1 89 

The  few  and  feeble  churches  of  the  Reformed  confession 
were  equally  needy  and  ill  befriended. 

It  seems  to  us,  as  we  read  the  story  after  the  lapse  of  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  as  if  the  man  expressly  designed 
and  equipped  by  the  providence  of  God  for  this  exigency 
in  the  progress  of  his  kingdom  had  arrived  when  Zinzen- 
dorf,  the  Moravian,  made  his  appearance  at  Philadelphia, 
December  10,  1741.  The  American  church,  in  all  its  his- 
tory, can  point  to  no  fairer  representative  of  the  charity 
that  "  seeketh  not  her  own  "  than  this  Saxon  nobleman, 
who,  for  the  true  love  that  he  bore  to  Christ  and  all 
Christ's  brethren,  was  willing  to  give  up  his  home,  his 
ancestral  estates,  his  fortune,  his  title  of  nobility,  his 
patrician  family  name,  his  office  of  bishop  in  the  ancient 
Moravian  church,  and  even  (last  Infirmity  of  zealous 
spirits)  his  interest  in  promoting  specially  that  order  of 
consecrated  men  and  women  in  the  church  catholic  which 
he  had  done  and  sacrificed  so  much  to  save  from  extinc- 
tion, and  to  which  his  "cares  and  toils  were  given."  He 
hastened  first  up  the  Lehigh  Valley  to  spend  Christmas 
at  Bethlehem,  where  the  foundations  had  already  been 
laid  on  which  have  been  built  up  the  half-monastic  insti- 
tutions of  charity  and  education  and  missions  which  have 
done  and  are  still  doing  so  much  to  bless  the  world  in  both 
its  hemispheres.  It  was  in  commemoration  of  this  Christ- 
mas visit  of  Bishop  Zinzendorf  that  the  mother  house  of 
the  Moravian  communities  in  America  received  its  name 
of  Bethlehem.  Returning  to  Philadelphia,  he  took  this 
city  as  the  base  of  his  unselfish  and  unpartisan  labors  in 
behalf  of  the  great  and  multiplying  population  from  his 
fatherland,  which  through  its  sectarian  divisions  had 
become  so  helpless  and  spiritually  needy.     Already  for 

reasonable,  unless  a  large  number  of  these  were  families  of  redemptioners, 
that  is,  for  the  time,  slaves. 


190  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xii. 

twenty  years  there  had  been  a  few  scattering  churches  of 
the  Reformed  confession,  and  for  half  that  time  a  few 
Lutheran  congregations  had  been  gathered  or  had  gathered 
themselves.  But  both  the  sects  had  been  overcome  by  the 
paralysis  resulting  from  habitual  dependence  on  paternal 
governments,  and  the  two  were  borne  asunder,  while  every 
right  motive  was  urging  to  cooperation  and  fellowship, 
by  the  almost  spent  momentum  of  old  controversies.  In 
Philadelphia  two  starveling  congregations  representing  the 
two  competing  sects  occupied  the  same  rude  meeting-place 
each  by  itself  on  alternate  Sundays.  The  Lutherans  made 
shift  without  a  pastor,  for  the  only  Lutheran  minister  in 
Pennsylvania  lived  at  Lancaster,  sixty  miles  away. 

To  the  scattered,  distracted,  and  demoralized  flocks  of 
his  German  fellow- Christians  in  the  middle  colonies  came 
Zinzendorf,  knowing  Jesus  Christ  crucified,  knowing  no 
man  according  to  the  flesh ;  and  at  once  "  the  neglected 
congregations  were  made  to  feel  the  thrill  of  a  strong  re- 
ligious life."  "  Aglow  with  zeal  for  Christ,  throwing  all 
emphasis  in  his  teaching  upon  the  one  doctrine  of  redemp- 
tion through  the  blood  shed  on  Calvary,  all  the  social 
advantages  and  influence  and  wealth  which  his  position 
gave  him  were  made  subservient  to  the  work  of  preaching 
Christ,  and  him  crucified,  to  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the 
learned  and  the  ignorant."  ^  The  Lutherans  of  Philadel- 
phia heard  him  gladly  and  entreated  him  to  preach  to 
them  regularly;  to  which  he  consented,  but  not  until  he 
had  assured  himself  that  this  would  be  acceptable  to  the 
pastor  of  the  Reformed  congregation.  But  his  mission 
was  to  the  sheep  scattered  abroad,  of  whom  he  reckoned 
(an  extravagant  overestimate)  not  less  than  one  hundred 

1  Jacobs,  "The  Lutherans,"  p.  196.  The  story  of  Zinzendorf,  as  seen 
from  different  points  of  view,  may  be  studied  in  the  volumes  of  Drs.  Jacobs, 
Dnbbs,  and  Hamilton  (American  Church  History  Series). 


DANGER   OF  C/TRIST/AN  UNION.  19I 

thousand  of  the  Lutheran  party  in  Pennsylvania  alone. 
Others,  as  he  soon  found,  had  been  feeling,  like  himself, 
the  hurt  of  the  daughter  of  Zion.  A  series  of  conferences 
was  held  from  month  to  month,  in  which  men  of  the  vari- 
ous German  sects  took  counsel  together  over  the  dissen- 
sions of  their  people,  and  over  the  question  how  the  ruin- 
ous effects  of  these  dissensions  could  be  avoided.  The  plan 
was,  not  to  attempt  a  merger  of  the  sects,  nor  to  alienate 
men  from  their  habitual  affiliations,  but  to  draw  together 
in  cooperation  and  common  worship  the  German  Christians, 
of  whatever  sect,  in  a  fellowship  to  be  called,  in  imitation 
of  a  Pauline  phrase  (Eph.  ii.  22),  "  the  Congregation  of 
God  in  the  Spirit."  The  plan  seemed  so  right  and  reason- 
able and  promising  of  beneficent  results  as  to  win  general 
approval.  It  was  in  a  fair  way  to  draw  together  the  whole 
miserably  divided  German  population.^ 

At  once  the  "  drum  ecclesiastic  "  beat  to  arms.  In  view 
of  the  impending  danger  that  their  scattered  fellow-coun- 
trymen might  come  into  mutual  fellowship  on  the  basis  of 
their  common  faith  in  Christ,  the  Lutheran  leaders  at 
Halle,  who  for  years  had  been  dawdling  and  haggling 
over  the  imploring  entreaties  of  the  shepherdless  Lutheran 
populations  in  America,  promptly  reconsidered  their  no7t 
possuimis,  and  found  and  sent  a  man  admirably  qualified 
for  the  desired  work,  Henry  Melchior  Muhlenberg,  a  man 
of  eminent  ability  and  judgment,  of  faith,  devotion,  and 
untiring  diligence,  not  illiberal,  but  a  conscientious  sec- 
tarian. An  earnest  preacher  of  the  gospel,  he  was  also 
earnest  that  the  gospel  should  be  preached  according  to 
the  Lutheran  formularies,  to  congregations  organized  ac- 
cording to  the  Lutheran  discipline.  The  easier  and  less 
worthy  part  of  the  appointed  task  was  soon  achieved. 
The  danger  that  the  religious  factions  that  had  divided 

1  Acrelius,  quoted  by  Jacobs,  p.  218,  note. 


i\ 


192  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xil. 

Germany  might  be  laid  aside  in  the  New  World  was  effec- 
tually dispelled.  Six  years  later  the  governor  of  Penn- 
sylvania was  still  able  to  write,  "The  Germans  imported 
with  them  all  the  religious  whimsies  of  their  country,  and, 
I  believe,  have  subdivided  since  their  arrival  here;"  and 
he  estimates  their  number  at  three  fifths  of  the  population 
of  the  province.  The  more  arduous  and  noble  work  of 
organizing  and  compacting  the  Lutherans  into  their  sepa- 
rate congregations,  and  combining  these  by  synodical  as- 
semblies, was  prosecuted  with  wisdom  and  energy,  and  at 
last,  in  spite  of  hindrances  and  discouragements,  with 
beneficent  success.  The  American  Lutheran  Church  of 
to-day  is  the  monument  of  the  labors  of  Muhlenberg. 

The  brief  remainder  of  Zinzendorf's  work  in  America 
may  be  briefly  told.  There  is  no  doubt  that,  like  many 
another  eager  and  hopeful  reformer,  he  overestimated  the 
strength  and  solidity  of  the  support  that  was  given  to  his 
generous  and  beneficent  plans.  At  the  time  of  Miihlen- 
berg's  arrival  Zinzendorf  was  the  elected  and  installed 
pastor  of  the  Lutheran  congregation  in  Philadelphia.  The 
conflict  could  not  be  a  long  one  between  the  man  who 
claimed  everything  for  his  commission  and  his  sect  and  the 
man  who  was  resolved  to  insist  on  nothing  for  himself. 
Notwithstanding  the  strong  love  for  him  among  the  people, 
Zinzendorf  was  easily  displaced  from  his  official  station. 
When  dispute  arose  about  the  use  of  the  empty  carpenter's 
shop  that  stood  them  instead  of  a  church,  he  waived  his 
own  claims  and  at  his  own  cost  built  a  new  house  of  wor- 
ship. But  it  was  no  part  of  his  work  to  stay  and  persist 
in  maintaining  a  division.  He  retired  from  the  field,  leav- 
ing it  in  charge  of  Miihlenberg,  "being  satisfied  if  only  Christ 
were  preached,"  and  returned  to  Europe,  having  achieved 
a  truly  honorable  and  most  Christian  failure,  more  to  be  es- 
teemed in  the  sight  of  God  than'many  a  splendid  success. 


MORAVIAN  MISSIONS.  1 93 

But  his  brief  sojourn  in  America  was  not  without  visible 
fruit.  He  left  behind  him  the  Moravian  church  fully  or- 
ganized under  the  episcopate  of  Bishop  David  Nitschmann, 
with  communities  or  congregations  begun  at  nine  different 
centers,  and  schools  established  in  four  places.  An  ex- 
tensive itinerancy  had  been  set  in  operation  under  careful 
supervision,  and,  most  characteristic  of  all,  a  great  begin- 
ning had  been  made  of  those  missions  to  the  heathen  In- 
dians, in  which  the  devoted  and  successful  labors  of  this 
little  society  of  Christians  have  put  to  shame  the  whole 
American  church  besides.  Not  all  of  this  is  to  be  ascribed 
to  the  activity  of  Zinzendorf ;  but  in  all  of  it  he  was  a 
sharer,  and  his  share  was  a  heroic  one.  The  two  years' 
visit  of  Count  Zinzendorf  to  America  forms  a  beautiful 
and  quite  singular  episode  in  our  church  history.  Return- 
ing to  his  ancestral  estates  splendidly  impoverished  by  his 
free-handed  beneficence,  he  passed  many  of  the  later  years 
of  his  life  at  Herrnhut,  that  radiating  center  from  which 
the  light  of  the  gospel  was  borne  by  the  multitude  of 
humble  missionaries  to  every  continent  under  the  whole 
heaven.  The  news  that  came  to  him  from  the  "  econo- 
mies "  that  he  had  planted  in  the  forests  of  Pennsylvania 
was  such  as  to  fill  his  generous  soul  with  joy.  In  the 
communities  of  Nazareth  and  Bethlehem  was  renewed  the 
Pentecostal  consecration  when  no  man  called  anything  his 
own.  The  prosperous  farms  and  varied  industries,  in  which 
no  towns  in  Pennsylvania  could  equal  them,  were  carried 
on,  not  for  private  interest,  but  for  the  church.  After 
three  years  the  community  work  was  not  only  self-sup- 
porting, but  sustained  about  fifty  missionaries  in  the  field, 
and  was  preparing  to  send  aid  to  the  missions  of  the  mother 
church  in  Germany.  The  Moravian  settlements  multiplied 
at  distant  points,  north  and  south.  The  educational  estab- 
lishments grew  strong  and  famous.     But  especially  the 


194  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xii, 

Indian  missions  spread  far  and  wide.  The  story  of  these 
missions  is  one  of  the  fairest  and  most  radiant  pages  in  the 
history  of  the  American  church,  and  one  of  the  bloodiest. 
Zinzendorf,  dying  at  London  in  May,  1756,  was  spared, 
we  may  hope,  the  heartbreaking  news  of  the  massacre  at 
Gnadenhutten  the  year  before.  But  from  that  time  on, 
through  the  French  wars,  the  Revolutionary  War,  the  War 
of  1 8 12,  and  down  to  the  infamy  of  Georgia  and  the 
United  States  in  1837,  the  innocent  and  Christhke  Mora- 
vian missions  have  been  exposed  from  every  side  to  the 
malignity  of  savage  men  both  white  and  red.  No  order 
of  missionaries  or  missionary  converts  can  show  a  nobler 
roll  of  martyrs  than  the  Moravians.  1 

The  work  of  Miihlenberg  for  the  Lutherans  stimulated 
the  Reformed  churches  in  Europe  to  a  like  work  for  their 
own  scattered  and  pastorless  sheep.  In  both  cases  the 
fear  that  the  work  of  the  gospel  might  not  be  done  seemed 
a  less  effective  incitement  to  activity  than  the  fear  that  it 
might  be  done  by  others.  It  was  the  Reformed  Church 
of  Holland,  rather  than  those  of  Germany,  miserably 
broken  down  and  discouraged  by  ravaging  wars,  that  as- 
sumed the  main  responsibility  for  this  task.  As  early  as 
1728  the  Dutch  synods  had  earnestly  responded  to  the 
appeal  of  their  impoverished  brethren  on  the  Rhine  in  be- 
half of  the  sheep  scattered  abroad.  And  in  1743,  acting 
through  the  classis  of  Amsterdam,  they  had  made  such 
progress  toward  beginning  the  preliminary  arrangements 
of  the  work  as  to  send  to  the  Presbyterian  synod  of  Phil- 
adelphia a  proposal  to  combine  into  one  the  Presbyterian, 
or  Scotch  Reformed,  the  Dutch  Reformed,  and  the  Ger- 
man Reformed  churches  in  America.  It  had  already  been 
proved  impossible  to  draw  together  in  common  activity 

1  Jacobs,  "The  Lutherans,"  pp.  215-218;  Hamilton,  "The  Moravians," 
chaps,  iii.-viii.,  xi. 


LUTHERAN  AND  REFORMED.  1 95 

and  worship  the  different  sects  of  the  same  German  race 
and  language ;  the  effort  to  unite  in  one  organization 
peoples  of  different  language,  but  of  substantially  the  same 
doctrine  and  polity,  was  equally  futile.  It  seemed  as  if 
minute  sectarian  division  and  subdivision  was  to  be  forced 
upon  American  Christianity  as  a  law  of  its  church  life. 

Diplomacies  ended,  the  synods  of  Holland  took  up  their 
work  with  real  munificence.  Large  funds  were  raised, 
sufficient  to  make  every  German  Reformed  missionary  in 
America  a  stipendiary  of  the  classis  of  Amsterdam ;  and 
if  these  subsidies  were  encumbered  with  severe  conditions 
of  subordination  to  a  foreign  directory,  and  if  they  begot  an 
enfeebling  sense  of  dependence,  these  were  necessary  in- 
cidents of  the  difficult  situation — res  dura  et  novitas  regni. 
The  most  important  service  which  the  synods  of  Holland 
rendered  to  their  American  beneficiaries  was  to  find  a 
man  who  should  do  for  them  just  the  work  which  Muhlen- 
berg was  already  doing  with  great  energy  for  the  Luther- 
ans. The  man  was  Michael  Schlatter.  If  in  any  respect 
he  was  inferior  to  Miihlenberg,  it  was  not  in  respect  to 
diligent  devotion  to  the  business  on  which  he  had  been 
sent.  It  is  much  to  the  credit  of  both  of  them  that,  in 
organizing  and  promoting  their  two  sharply  competing 
sects,  they  never  failed  of  fraternal  personal  relations. 
They  worked  together  with  one  heart  to  keep  their  people 
apart  from  each  other.  The  Christian  instinct,  in  a  com- 
munity of  German  Christians,  to  gather  in  one  congrega- 
\  tion  for  common  worship  was  solemnly  discouraged  by 

the  two  apostles  and  the  synods  which  they  organized. 
How  could  the  two  parties  walk  together  when  one  prayed 
Vater  unser,  and  the  other  unser  Vater?  But  the  beauty 
of  Christian  unity  was  illustrated  in  such  incidents  as  this : 
Mr.  Schlatter  and  some  of  the  Reformed  Christians,  being 
present  at  a  Lutheran  church  on  a  communion  Sunday, 


196  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xn. 

listened  to  the  preaching  of  the  Lutheran  pastor,  after 
which  the  Reformed  minister  made  a  communion  address, 
and  then  the  congregation  was  dismissed,  and  the  Re- 
formed went  off  to  a  school-house  to  receive  the  Lord's 
Supper.  1  Truly  it  was  fragrant  Hke  the  ointment  on  the 
beard  of  Aaron! 

Such  was  the  diligence  of  Schlatter  that  the  synod  or 
coetus  of  the  Reformed  Church  was  instituted  in  1747,  a 
year  from  his  arrival.  The  Lutheran  synod  dates  from 
1 748,  although  Muhlenberg  was  on  the  ground  four  years 
earlier  than  Schlatter.  Thus  the  great  work  of  dividing 
the  German  population  of  America  into  two  major  sects 
was  conscientiously  and  effectually  performed.  Seventy 
years  later,  with  large  expenditure  of  persuasion,  authority, 
and  money,  it  was  found  possible  to  heal  in  some  measure 
in  the  old  country  the  very  schism  which  good  men  had 
been  at  such  pains  to  perpetuate  in  the  new. 

High  honor  is  due  to  the  prophetic  wisdom  of  these 
two  leaders  of  German-American  Christianity,  in  that 
they  clearly  recognized  in  advance  that  the  English  was 
destined  to  be  the  dominant  language  of  North  America. 
Their  strenuous  though  unsuccessful  effort  to  promote  a 
system  of  public  schools  in  Pennsylvania  was  defeated 
through  their  own  ill  judgment  and  the  ignorant  prejudices 
of  the  immigrant  people  played  upon  by  politicians.  But 
the  mere  attempt  entitles  them  to  lasting  gratitude.  It  is 
not  unlikely  that  their  divisive  work  of  church  organization 
may  have  contributed  indirectly  to  defeat  the  aspirations 
of  their  fellow- Germans  after  the  perpetuation  of  a  Ger- 
many in  America.  The  combination  of  the  mass  of  the 
German  population  in  one  solid  church  organization  would 
have  been  a  formidable  support  to  such  aspirations.  The 
splitting  of  this  mass  in  half,  necessitating  petty  local 
1  Jacobs,  "  The  Lutherans,"  p.  289. 


THE   GERMAN  AMERICANS.  1 97 

schisms  with  all  their  debilitating  and  demoralizing  con- 
sequences, may  have  helped  secure  the  country  from  a 
serious  political  and  social  danger. 

So,  then,  the  German  church  in  America  at  the  close  of 
the  colonial  era  exists,  outside  of  the  petty  primeval  sects, 
in  three  main  divisions :  the  Lutheran,  the  Reformed,  and 
the  Moravian.  There  is  free  opportunity  for  Christians 
of  this  language  to  sort  themselves  according  to  their 
elective  affinities.  That  American  ideal  of  edifying  har- 
mony is  well  attained,  according  to  which  men  of  partial 
or  one-sided  views  of  truth  shall  be  associated  exclusively 
in  church  relations  with  others  of  like  precious  defects. 
Muhlenberg  seems  to  have  been  sensible  of  the  nature  of 
the  division  he  was  making  in  the  body  of  Christ,  when, 
after  severing  successfully  between  the  strict  Lutherans  in 
a  certain  congregation  and  those  of  Moravian  sympathies, 
he  finds  it  "  hard  to  decide  on  which  side  of  the  controversy 
the  greater  justice  lay.  The  greater  part  of  those  on  the 
Lutheran  side,  he  feared,  was  composed  of  unconverted 
men,"  while  the  Moravian  party  seemed  open  to  the  re- 
proach of  enthusiasm.  So  he  concluded  that  each  sort  of 
Christians  would  be  better  off  without  the  other.  Time 
proved  his  diagnosis  to  be  better  than  his  treatment.  In 
the  course  of  a  generation  the  Lutheran  body,  carefully 
weeded  of  pietistic  admixtures,  sank  perilously  deep  in 
cold  rationalism,  and  the  Moravian  church  was  quite  car- 
ried away  for  a  time  on  a  flood  of  sentimentalism.  What 
might  have  been  the  course  of  this  part  of  church  history 
if  Muhlenberg  and  Schlatter  had  shared  more  deeply  with 
Zinzendorf  in  the  spirit  of  apostolic  and  catholic  Chris- 
tianity, and  if  all  three  had  conspired  to  draw  together  into 
one  the  various  temperaments  and  tendencies  of  the  Ger- 
man Americans  in  the  unity  of  the  Spirit  with  the  bond  of 
peace,  may  seem  like  an  idle  historical  conjecture,  but  the 


198  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xii. 

question  is  not  without  practical  interest  to-day.  Perhaps 
the  Moravians  would  have  been  the  better  for  being  bal- 
lasted with  the  weighty  theologies  and  the  conservative 
temper  of  the  state  churches;  it  is  very  certain  that  these 
would  have  gained  by  the  infusion  of  something  of  that 
warmth  of  Christian  love  and  zeal  that  pervaded  to  a 
wonderful  degree  the  whole  Moravian  fellowship.  But 
the  hand  and  the  foot  were  quite  agreed  that  they  had  no 
need  of  each  other  or  of  the  heart.^ 

By  far  the  most  momentous  event  of  American  church 
history  in  the  closing  period  of  the  colonial  era  was  the 
planting  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church.  The  Wes- 
leyan  revival  was  strangely  tardy  in  reaching  this  country, 
with  which  it  had  so  many  points  of  connection.  It  was 
in  America,  in  1737,  that  John  Wesley  passed  through 
the  discipline  of  a  humiliating  experience,  by  which  his 
mind  had  been  opened,  and  that  he  had  been  brought  into 
acquaintance  with  the  Moravians,  by  whom  he  was  to  be 
taught  the  way  of  the  Lord  more  perfectly.  It  was  John 
Wesley  who  sent  Whitefield  to  America,  from  whom,  on 
his  first  return  to  England,  in  1 738,  he  learned  the  practice 
of  field-preaching.  It  was  from  America  that  Edwards's 
"  Narrative  of  Surprising  Conversions  "  had  come  to  Wes- 
ley, which,  being  read  by  him  on  the  walk  from  London 
to  Oxford,  opened  to  his  mind  unknown  possibilities  of 
the  swift  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  be- 
ginning of  the  Wesleyan  societies  in  England  followed  in 
close  connection  upon  the  first  Awakening  in  America. 
It  went  on  with  growing  momentum  in  England  and  Ire- 
land for  quarter  of  a  century,  until,  in  1765,  it  numbered 

1  Jacobs,  pp.  227,  309,  sqq. ;  Hamilton,  p.  457.  No  account  of  the  Ger- 
man-American churches  is  adequate  which  does  not  go  back  to  the  work  of 
Spener,  the  influence  of  which  was  felt  through  them  all.  The  author  is  com- 
pelled  to  content  himself  with  inadequate  work  on  many  topics. 


BEGINNING   OF  METHODISM.  1 99 

thirty-nine  circuits  served  by  ninety-two  itinerant  preach- 
ers; and  its  work  was  mainly  among  the  classes  from 
which  the  emigration  to  the  colonies  was  drawn.  It  is 
not  easy  to  explain  how  it  came  to  pass  that  through  all 
these  twenty-five  years  Wesleyan  Methodism  gave  no 
sound  or  sign  of  life  on  that  continent  on  which  it  was 
destined  (if  one  may  speak  of  predestination  in  this  con- 
nection) to  grow  to  its  most  magnificent  proportions. 

At  last,  in  i  ^66,  in  a  httle  group  of  Methodist  families 
that  had  found  one  another  out  among  the  recent  comers 
in  New  York,  Philip  Embury,  who  in  his  native  Ireland 
long  before  had  been  a  recognized  local  preacher,  was 
induced  by  the  persuasions  and  reproaches  of  a  pious 
woman  to  take  his  not  inconsiderable  talent  from  the 
napkin  in  which  he  had  kept  it  hidden  for  six  years,  and 
preach  in  his  own  house  to  as  many  as  could  be  brought 
in  to  listen  to  him.  The  few  that  were  there  formed 
themselves  into  a  "  class "  and  promised  to  attend  at 
future  meetings. 

A  more  untoward  time  for  the  setting  on  foot  of  a  re- 
ligious enterprise  could  hardly  have  been  chosen.  It  was 
a  time  of  prevailing  languor  in  the  churches,  in  the  reaction 
from  the  Great  Awakening ;  it  was  also  a  time  of  intense 
poHtical  agitation.  The  year  before  the  Stamp  Act  had 
been  passed,  and  the  whole  chain  of  colonies,  from  New 
Hampshire  to  Georgia,  had  been  stirred  up  to  resist  the . 
execution  of  it.  This  year  the  Stamp  Act  had  been  re- 
pealed, but  in  such  terms  as  to  imply  a  new  menace  and 
redouble  the  agitation.  From  this  time  forward  to  the 
outbreak  of  war  in  1775,  and  from  that  year  on  till  the 
conclusion  of  peace  in  1783,  the  land  was  never  at  rest 
from  turmoil.  Through  it  all  the  Methodist  societies  grew 
and  multiplied.  In  1767  Embury's  house  had  overflowed, 
and  a  sail-loft  was  hired  for  the  growing  congregation. 


200  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xil. 

In  1768  a  lot  on  John  Street  was  secured  and  a  meeting- 
house was  built.  The  work  had  spread  to  Philadelphia, 
and,  self-planted  in  Maryland  under  the  preaching  of 
Robert  Strawbridge,  was  propagating  itself  rapidly  in  that 
peculiarly  congenial  soil.  In  1  769,  in  response  to  earnest 
entreaties  from  America,  two  of  Wesley's  itinerant  preach- 
ers, Boardman  and  Pilmoor,  arrived  with  his  commission 
to  organize  an  American  itinerancy ;  and  two  years  later, 
in  1 77 1,  arrived  Francis  Asbury,  who,  by  virtue  of  his 
preeminent  qualifications  for  organization,  administration, 
and  command,  soon  became  practically  the  director  of  the 
American  work,  a  function  to  which,  in  1772,  he  was 
officially  appointed  by  commission  from  Wesley. 

Very  great  is  the  debt  that  American  Christianity  owes 
to  Francis  Asbury.  It  may  reasonably  be  doubted  whether 
any  one  man,  from  the  founding  of  the  church  in  America 
until  now,  has  achieved  so  much  in  the  visible  and  trace- 
able results  of  his  work.  It  is  very  certain  that  Wesley 
himself,  with  his  despotic  temper  and  his  High-church  and 
Tory  principles,  could  not  have  carried  the  Methodist 
movement  in  the  New  World  onward  through  the  perils 
of  its  infancy  on  the  way  to  so  eminent  a  success  as  that 
which  was  prepared  by  his  vicegerent.  Fully  possessed 
of  the  principles  of  that  autocratic  discipline  ordained  by 
Wesley,  he  knew  how  to  use  it  as  not  abusing  it,  being 
aware  that  such  a  discipline  can  continue  to  subsist,  in  the 
long  run,  only  by  studying  the  temper  of  the  subjects  of 
it,  and  making  sure  of  obedience  to  orders  by  making  sure 
that  the  orders  are  agreeable,  on  the  whole,  to  the  subjects. 
More  than  one  polity  theoretically  aristocratic  or  monarchic 
in  the  atmosphere  of  our  republic  has  grown  into  a  practi- 
cally popular  government,  simply  through  tact  and  good 
judgment  in  the  administration  of  it,  without  changing  a 
syllable^of  its  constitution.     Very  early  in  the  history  of 


PROGRESS   OF  METHODISM.  201 

the  Methodist  Church  it  is  easy  to  recognize  the  aptitude 
with  which  Asbury  naturalizes  himself  in  the  new  chmate. 
Nominally  he  holds  an  absolute  autocracy  over  the  young 
organization.  Whatever  the  subject  at  issue,  "  on  hearing 
every  preacher  for  and  against,  the  right  of  determination 
was  to  rest  with  him."  ^  Questions  of  the  utmost  difficulty 
and  of  vital  importance  arose  in  the  first  years  of  the 
American  itinerancy.  They  could  not  have  been  decided 
so  wisely  for  the  country  and  the  universal  church  if  As- 
bury, seeming  to  govern  the  ministry  and  membership  of 
the  Society,  had  not  studied  to  be  governed  by  them.  In 
spite  of  the  sturdy  dictum  of  Wesley,  "  We  are  not  repub- 
licans, and  do  not  intend  to  be,"  the  salutary  and  necessary 
change  had  already  begun  which  was  to  accommodate  his 
institutes  in  practice,  and  eventually  in  form,  to  the  habits 
and  requirements  of  a  free  people. 

The  center  of  gravity  of  the  Methodist  Society,  begin- 
ning at  New  York,  moved  rapidly  southward.  Boston 
had  been  the  metropolis  of  the  Congregationalist  churches ; 
New  York,  of  the  Episcopahans ;  Philadelphia,  of  the 
Quakers  and  the  Presbyterians;  and  Baltimore,  latest  and 
southernmost  of  the  large  colonial  cities,  became,  for  a 
time,  the  headquarters  of  Methodism.  Accessions  to  the 
Society  in  that  region  were  more  in  number  and  stronger 
in  wealth  and  social  influence  than  in  more  northern  com- 
munities. It  was  at  Baltimore  that  Asbury  fixed  his  resi- 
dence— so  far  as  a  Methodist  bishop,  ranging  the  country 
with  incessant  and  untiring  diligence,  could  be  said  to  have 
a  fixed  residence. 

The  record  of  the  successive  annual  conferences  of  the 
Methodists  gives  a  gauge  of  their  increase.  At  the  first, 
in  1773,  at  Philadelphia,  there  were  reported  1 160  members 
and  10  preachers,  not  one  of  these  a  native  of  America. 

1  Dr.  J.  M.  Buckley,  "  The  Methodists,"  p.  l8l. 


202  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xn. 

At  the  second  annual  conference,  in  Philadelphia,  there 
were  reported  2073  members  and  17  preachers. 

The  third  annual  conference  sat  at  Philadelphia  in  1775, 
simultaneously  with  the  Continental  Congress.  It  was  the 
beginning  of  the  war.  There  were  reported  3148  mem- 
bers. Some  of  the  foremost  preachers  had  gone  back  to 
England,  unable  to  carry  on  their  work  without  being 
compelled  to  compromise  their  royalist  principles.  The 
preachers  reporting  were  19.  Of  the  membership  nearly 
2500  were  south  of  Philadelphia — about  eighty  per  cent. 

At  the  fourth  annual  conference,  at  Baltimore,  in  1776, 
were  reported  4921  members  and  24  preachers. 

At  the  fifth  annual  conference,  in  Harford  County, 
Maryland,  were  reported  6968  members  and  36  preachers. 
This  was  in  the  thick  of  the  war.  More  of  the  leading 
preachers,  sympathizing  with  the  royal  cause,  were  going 
home  to  England.  The  Methodists  as  a  body  were  sub- 
ject to  not  unreasonable  suspicion  of  being  disaffected  to 
the  cause  of  independence.  Their  preachers  were  princi- 
pally Englishmen  with  British  sympathies.  The  whole 
order  was  dominated  and  its  property  controlled  by  an 
offensively  outspoken  Tory  of  the  Dr.  Johnson  type.^  It 
was  natural  enough  that  in  their  public  work  they  should 
be  liable  to  annoyance,  mob  violence,  and  military  arrest. 
Even  Asbury,  a  man  of  proved  American  sympathies, 
found  it  necessary  to  retire  for  a  time  from  public  activity. 

In  these  circumstances,  it  is  no  wonder  that  at  the  con- 
ference of  1778,  at  Leesburg,  Va.,  at  which  five  circuits  in 
the  most  disturbed  regions  were  unrepresented,  there  was 
a  decline  in  numbers.  The  members  were  fewer  by  873  ; 
the  preachers  fewer  by  7. 

But  it  is  really  wonderful  that  the  next  year  (1779) 

1  The  attitude  of  Wesley  toward  the  American  cause  is  set  forth  with 
judicial  fairness  by  Dr.  Buckley,  pp.  158-168. 


METHODISM  IN   THE    ]VAR.  203 

were  reported  extensive  revivals  in  all  parts  not  directly 
affected  by  the  war,  and  an  increase  of  2482  members  and 
49  preachers.  The  distribution  of  the  membership  was 
very  remarkable.  At  this  time,  and  for  many  years  after, 
there  was  no  organized  Methodism  in  New  England.  New 
York,  being  occupied  by  the  invading  army,  sent  no  report. 
Of  the  total  reported  membership  of  8577,  140  are  credited 
to  New  Jersey,  179  to  Pennsylvania,  795  to  Delaware,  and 
900  to  Maryland.  Nearly  all  the  remainder,  about  eighty 
per  cent,  of  the  whole,  was  included  in  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina.  With  the  exception  of  319  persons,  the  entire 
reported  membership  of  the  Methodist  societies  lived  south 
of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  The  fact  throws  an  honorable 
Hght  on  some  incidents  of  the  early  history  of  this  great 
order  of  preachers. 

In  the  sixteen  years  from  the  meeting  in  Philip  Em- 
bury's house  to  the  end  of  the  War  of  Independence  the 
membership  of  the  Methodist  societies  grew  to  about 
12,000,  served  by  about  70  itinerant  preachers.  It  was  a 
very  vital  and  active  membership,  including  a  large  num- 
ber of  "  local  preachers"  and  exhorters.  The  societies 
and  classes  were  eflfectively  organized  and  officered  for 
aggressive  work ;  and  they  were  planted,  for  the  most  part, 
in  the  regions  most  destitute  of  Christian  institutions. 

Parallel  with  the  course  of  the  gospel,  we  trace  in  every 
period  the  course  of  those  antichristian  influences  with 
which  the  gospel  is  in  conflict.  The  system  of  slavery 
must  continue,  through  many  sorrowful  years,  to  be  in  view 
from  the  line  of  our  studies.  We  shall  know  it  by  the 
unceasing  protest  made  against  it  in  the  name  of  the  Lord. 
The  arguments  of  John  Woolman  and  Anthony  Benezet 
were  sustained  by  the  yearly  meetings  of  the  Friends.  At 
Newport,  the  chief  center  of  the  African  slave-trade,  the 


204  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xii. 

two  Congiegational  pastors,  Samuel  Hopkins,  the  theolo- 
gian, and  the  erudite  Ezra  Stiles,  afterward  president  of 
Yale  College,  mutually  opposed  in  theology  and  contrasted 
at  every  point  of  natural  character,  were  at  one  in  boldly 
opposing  the  business  by  which  their  parishioners  had  been 
enriched.^  The  deepening  of  the  conflict  for  political  lib- 
erty pointed  the  application  of  the  golden  rule  in  the  case 
of  the  slaves.  The  antislavery  literature  of  the  period  in- 
cludes a  printed  sermon  that  had  been  preached  by  the 
distinguished  Dr.  Levi  Hart  "  to  the  corporation  of  free- 
men "  of  his  native  town  of  Farmington,  Conn.,  at  their 
autumnal  town-meeting  in  1774;  and  the  poem  on  "  Slav- 
ery," published  in  1775  by  that  fine  character,  Aaron 
Cleveland,^  of  Norwich,  hatter,  poet,  legislator,  and  minis- 
ter of  the  gospel.  Among  the  Presbyterians  of  New  Jer- 
sey, the  father  of  Dr.  Ashbel  Green  took  the  extreme 
ground  which  was  taken  by  Dr.  Hopkins's  church  in  i  784, 
that  no  person  holding  a  slave  should  be  permitted  to  re- 
main in  the  communion  of  the  church.^  In  1774  the  first 
society  in  the  world  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  was  organ- 
ized among  the  Friends  in  Pennsylvania,  to  be  followed 
by  others,  making  a  continuous  series  of  abohtion  socie- 
ties from  New  England  to  Maryland  and  Virginia.  But 
the  great  antislavery  society  of  the  period  in  question  was 

1  A  full  account  of  Hopkins's  long- sustained  activity  against  both  slav- 
ery and  the  slave-trade  is  given  in  Park's  "  Memoir  of  Hopkins,"  pp.  114- 
157.  His  sermons  on  the  subject  began  in  1770.  His  monumental  "  Dia- 
logue Concerning  the  Slavery  of  the  Africans,  with  an  Address  to  Slave- 
holders," was  published  in  1776.  For  additional  information  as  to  the  anti- 
slavery  attitude  of  the  church  at  this  period,  and  especially  that  of  Stiles,  see 
review  of  "  The  Minister's  Wooing,"  by  L.  Bacon  ("  New  Englander,"  vol. 
xviii.,  p.  145). 

2  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  a  copy  of  this  poem,  the  character  of  which, 
however,  is  well  known.  The  son  of  Aaron  Cleveland,  William,  was  a 
silversmith  at  Norwich,  among  whose  grandsons  may  be  named  President 
Grover  Cleveland,  and  Aaron  Cleveland  Cox,  later  known  as  Bishop  Arthur 
Cleveland  Coxe. 

3  Dr.  A.  Green's  Life  of  his  father,  in  "  Monthly  Christian  Advocate," 


SLArERY  AND  IXTEMPERANCE.  205 

the  Methodist  Society.  Laboring  through  the  War  of  In- 
dependence mainly  in  the  Southern  States,  it  publicly  de- 
clared, in  the  conference  of  1 780,  "  that  slavery  is  contrary 
to  the  laws  of  God,  man,  and  nature,  and  hurtful  to  soci- 
ety ;  contrary  to  the  dictates  of  conscience  and  pure  reli- 
gion, and  doing  that  which  we  would  not  that  others  should 
do  to  us  and  ours."  The  discipline  of  the  body  of  itiner- 
ants was  conducted  rigorously  in  accordance  with  this  dec- 
laration. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  instances  here  cited 
represent  exceptions  to  the  general  course  of  opinion  in 
the  church  of  those  times.  They  are  simply  expressions 
of  the  universal  judgment  of  those  whose  attention  had 
been  seriously  fixed  upon  the  subject.  There  appears  no 
evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  contrary  sentiment.  The 
first  beginnings  of  a  party  in  the  church  in  opposition  to 
the  common  judgment  of  the  Christian  conscience  on  the 
subject  of  slavery  are  to  be  referred  to  a  comparatively 
very  recent  date. 

Another  of  the  great  conflicts  of  the  modern  church  was 
impending.  But  it  was  only  to  prophetic  minds  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  that  it  was  visible  in  the 
greatness  of  its  proportions.  The  vice  of  drunkenness, 
which  Isaiah  had  denounced  in  Samaria  and  Paul  had  de- 
nounced at  Ephesus,  was  growing  insensibly,  since  the  in- 
troduction of  distilled  liquors  as  a  common  beverage,  to  a 
fatal  prevalence.  The  trustees  of  the  charitable  colony  of 
Georgia,  consciously  laying  the  foundations  of  many  gen- 
erations, endeavored  to  provide  for  the  welfare  of  the 
nascent  State  by  forbidding  at  once  the  importation  of 
negro  slaves  and  of  spirituous  liquors ;  but  the  salutary 
interdict  was  soon  nullified  in  the  interest  of  the  crops  and 
of  the  trade  with  the  Indians.  Dr.  Hopkins  "  inculcated, 
at  a  very  early  day,  the  duty  of  entire  abstinence  from 


206  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xii. 

intoxicating  liquids  as  a  beverage."  ^  But,  as  in  the  con- 
flict with  slavery,  so  in  this  conflict,  the  priority  of  leader- 
ship belongs  easily  to  Wesley  and  his  itinerants.  The 
conference  of  1783  declared  against  permitting  the  con- 
verts "  to  make  spirituous  liquors,  sell  and  drink  them  in 
drams,"  as  "  wrong  in  its  nature  and  consequences."  To 
this  course  they  were  committed  long  in  advance  by  the 
"  General  Rules  "  set  forth  by  the  two  Wesleys  in  May, 
1743,  for  the  guidance  of  the  "  United  Societies."  2 

An  incident  of  the  times  immediately  preceding  the  War 
of  Independence  requires  to  be  noted  in  this  place,  not  as 
being  of  great  importance  in  itself,  but  as  characteristic  of 
the  condition  of  the  country  and  prophetic  of  changes  that 
were  about  to  take  place.  During  the  decade  from  1 76b 
to  1775  the  national  body  of  the  Presbyterians — the  now 
reunited  synod  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia — and  the 
General  Association  of  the  Congregational  pastors  of  Con- 
necticut met  together  by  their  representatives  in  annual 
convention  to  take  counsel  over  a  grave  peril  that  seemed 
to  be  impending.  A  petition  had  been  urgently  pressed, 
in  behalf  of  the  American  Episcopalians,  for  the  establish- 
ment of  bishops  in  the  colonies  under  the  authority  of  the 
Church  of  England.  The  reasons  for  this  measure  were 
obvious  and  weighty ;  and  the  protestations  of  those  who 
promoted  it,  that  they  sought  no  advantage  before  the 
law  over  their  fellow- Christians,  were  doubtless  sincere. 
Nevertheless,  the  fear  that  the  bringing  in  of  Church  of 
England  bishops  would  involve  the  bringing  in  of  many 
of  those  mischiefs  of  the  English  church  establishment 
which  neither  they  nor  their  fathers  had  been  able  to  bear 
was  a  perfectly  reasonable  fear  both  to  the  Puritans  of 
New  England  and  to  the  Presbyterians  from  Ireland,     It 

1  Park,  "  Memoir  of  Hopkins,"  p.  1 12. 

2  Buckley,  "The  Methodists,"  Appendix,  pp.  688,  689. 


PROPOSED    COLOXIAL   BISHOPS.  207 

was  difficult  for  these,  and  it  would  have  been  even  more 
difficult  for  the  new  dignitaries,  in  colonial  days,  to  under- 
stand how  bishops  could  be  anything  but  lord  bishops. 
The  fear  of  such  results  was  not  confined  to  ecclesiastics. 
The  movement  was  felt  by  the  colonial  statesmen  to  be 
dangerously  akin  to  other  British  encroachments  on  colo- 
nial rights.  The  Massachusetts  Assembly  instructed  its 
agent  in  London  strenuously  to  oppose  it.  In  Virginia, 
the  Episcopalian  clergy  themselves  at  first  refused  to  con- 
cur in  the  petition  for  bishops ;  and  when  at  last  the  con- 
currence was  voted,  it  was  in  the  face  of  a  formal  protest 
of  four  of  the  clergy,  for  which  they  received  a  vote  of 
thanks  from  the  House  of  Burgesses.^ 

The  alliance  thus  occasioned  between  the  national 
synod  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  and  the  Congregation- 
alist  clergy  of  the  httle  colony  of  Connecticut  seems  Hke  a 
disproportioned  one.  And  so  it  was  indeed ;  for  the 
Connecticut  General  Association  was  by  far  the  larger 
and  stronger  body  of  the  two.  By  and  by  the  dispropor- 
tion was  inverted,  and  the  alliance  continued,  with  notable 
results. 

1  See  Tiffany,  "  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,"  pp.  267-278,  where  the 
subject  is  treated  fully  and  with  characteristic  fairness. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

RECONSTRUCTION. 

Seven  years  of  war  left  the  American  people  exhausted, 
impoverished,  disorganized,  conscious  of  having  come  into 
possession  of  a  national  existence,  and  stirred  with  anxious 
searchings  of  heart  over  the  question  what  new  institutions 
should  succeed  to  those  overthrown  in  the  struggle  for 
independence. 

Like  questions  pervaded  the  commonwealth  of  American 
Christians  through  all  its  divisions.  The  interconfessional 
divisions  of  the  body  ecclesiastic  were  about  to  prove 
themselves  a  more  effectual  bar  to  union  than  the  political 
and  territorial  divisions  of  the  body  politic.  The  religious 
divisions  were  nearly  equal  in  number  to  the  poHtical. 
Naming  them  in  the  order  in  which  they  had  settled 
themselves  on  the  soil  of  the  new  nation,  they  were  as  fol- 
lows:  I.  The  Protestant  Episcopalians;  2.  The  Reformed 
Dutch;  3.  The  Congregationalists ;  4.  The  Roman  Catho- 
lics; 5.  The  Friends;  6.  The  Baptists;  7.  The  Presbyteri- 
ans; 8.  The  Methodists;  to  which  must  be  added  three 
sects  which  up  to  this  time  had  almost  exclusively  to  do 
with  the  German  language  and  the  German  immigrant 
population,  to  wit,  9.  The  German  Reformed;  10.  The 
Lutherans;  11.  The  Moravians.  Some  of  these,  as  the 
Congregationalists  and  the  Baptists,  were  of  so  simple  and 
208 


DAMAGE  FROM   THE    irAR.  209 

elastic  a  polity,  so  self-adaptive  to  whatever  new  environ- 
ment, as  to  require  no  effort  to  adjust  themselves.  Others, 
as  the  Dutch  and  the  Presbyterians,  had  alread}-  organized 
themselves  as  independent  of  foreign  spiritual  jurisdiction. 
Others  still,  as  the  German  Reformed,  the  Moravians,  and 
the  Quakers,  were  content  to  remain  for  years  to  come  in 
a  relation  of  subordination  to  foreign  centers  of  organiza- 
tion. But  there  were  three  communions,  of  great  pro- 
spective importance,  which  found  it  necessary  to  address 
themselves  to  the  task  of  reorganization  to  suit  the  changed 
political  conditions.  These  were  the  Episcopalians,  the 
Catholics,  and  the  Methodists. 

In  one  respect  all  the  various  orders  of  churches  were 
alike.  They  had  all  suffered  from  the  waste  and  damage 
of  war.  Pastors  and  missionaries  had  been  driven  from 
their  cures,  congregations  had  been  scattered,  houses  of 
worship  had  been  desecrated  or  destroyed.  The  Episco- 
I  palian  and  Methodist  ministers  were  generally  Tories,  and 

'  their  churches,  and  in  some  instances  their  persons,  were 

not  spared  by  the  patriots.  The  Friends  and  the  Mora- 
vians, principled  against  taking  active  part  in  warfare,  were 
exposed  to  aggressions  from  both  sides.  All  other  sects 
were  safely  presumed  to  be  in  earnest  sympathy  with  the 
cause  of  independence,  which  many  of  their  pastors  actively 
served  as  chaplains  or  as  combatants,  or  in  other  ways ; 
wherever  the  British  troops  held  the  ground,  their  churches 
were  the  object  of  spite.  Nor  were  these  the  chief  losses 
by  the  war.  More  grievous  still  were  the  death  of  the 
strong  men  and  the  young  men  of  the  churches,  the  de- 
moralization of  camp  life,  and,  as  the  war  advanced,  the 
infection  of  the  current  fashions  of  unbelief  from  the  offi- 
cers both  of  the  French  and  of  the  British  armies.  The 
prevalent  diathesis  of  the  American  church  in  all  its  sects 
was  one  of  spiritual  torpor,  from  which,  however,  it  soon 


210  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiii. 

began  to  be  aroused  as  the  grave  exigencies  of  the  situa- 
tion disclosed  themselves. 

Perhaps  no  one  of  the  Christian  organizations  of  Amer- 
ica came  out  of  the  war  in  a  more  forlorn  condition  than 
the  Episcopalians.  This  condition  was  thus  described  by- 
Bishop  White,  in  an  official  charge  to  his  clergy  at  Phila- 
delphia in  1832  : 

"  The  congregations  of  our  communion  throughout  the 
United  States  were  approaching  annihilation.  Although 
within  this  city  three  Episcopal  clergymen  were  resident 
and  officiating,  the  churches  over  the  rest  of  the  State  had 
become  deprived  of  their  clergy  during  the  war,  either  by 
death  or  by  departure  for  England.  In  the  Eastern  States, 
with  two  or  three  exceptions,  there  was  a  cessation  of  the 
exercises  of  the  pulpit,  owing  to  the  necessary  disuse  of 
the  prayers  for  the  former  civil  rulers.  In  Maryland  and 
Virginia,  where  the  church  had  enjoyed  civil  establishments, 
on  the  ceasing  of  these,  the  incumbents  of  the  parishes, 
almost  without  exception,  ceased  to  officiate.  Farther 
south  the  condition  of  the  church  was  not  better,  to  say 
the  least."  ^ 

This  extreme  feebleness  of  Episcopalianism  in  the  sev- 
eral States  conspired  with  the  tendencies  of  the  time  in 
civil  affairs  to  induce  upon  the  new  organization  a  charac- 
ter not  at  all  conformed  to  the  ideal  of  episcopal  govern- 
ment. Instead  of  establishing  as  the  unit  of  organization 
the  bishop  in  every  principal  town,  governing  his  diocese 
at  the  head  of  his  clergy  with  some  measure  of  authority, 
it  was  almost  a  necessity  of  the  time  to  constitute  dioceses 
as  big  as  kingdoms,  and  then  to  take  security  against  ex- 

1  Quoted  in  Tiffany,  p.  289,  note.  The  extreme  depression  of  the  Prot- 
estant Episcopal  and  (as  will  soon  appear)  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
at  this  point  of  time,  emphasizes  all  the  more  the  great  advances  made  by 
both  these  communions  from  this  time  forward. 


QrAS/-Erii>COPAL    ORGANIZATION.  211 

cess  of  power  in  the  diocesan  by  overslaughing  his  author- 
ity through  exorbitant  powers  conferred  upon  a  periodical 
mixed  synod,  legislating  for  a  whole  continent,  even  in 
matters  confessedly  variable  and  unessential.  In  the  later 
evolution  of  the  system,  this  superior  limitation  of  the 
bishop's  powers  is  supplemented  from  below  by  magnify- 
ing the  authority  of  representative  bodies,  diocesan  and 
parochial,  until  the  work  of  the  bishop  is  reduced  as  nearly 
as  possible  to  the  merely  "  ministerial "  performance  of 
certain  assigned  functions  according  to  prescribed  direc- 
tions. Concerning  this  frame  of  government  it  is  to  be 
remarked  :  i.  That  it  was  quite  consciously  and  confessedly 
devised  for  the  government  of  a  sect,  with  the  full  and 
fraternal  understanding  that  other  "  rehgious  denomina- 
tions of  Christians  "  (to  use  the  favorite  American  euphe- 
mism) "  were  left  at  full  and  equal  liberty  to  model  and 
organize  their  respective  churches  "  to  suit  themselves.^ 

2.  That,  judged  according  to  its  professed  purpose,  it  has 
proved  itself  a  practically  good  and  effective  government. 

3.  That  it  is  in  no  proper  sense  of  the  word  an  episcopal 
government,  but  rather  a  classical  and  synodical  govern- 
ment, according  to  the  common  type  of  the  American 
church  constitutions  of  the  period.' 

The  objections  which  only  a  few  years  before  had  with- 
stood the  importation  into  the  colonies  of  lord  bishops, 
with  the  English  common  and  canon  law  at  their  backs, 
vanished  entirely  before  the  proposal  for  the  harmless 
functionaries  provided  for  in  the  new  constitution.  John 
Adams  himself,  a  leader  of  the  former  opposition,  now,  as 
American  minister  in  London,  did  his  best  to  secure  for 

1  Preface  to  the  American  "  Book  of  Common  Prayer,"  1789. 

2  See  the  critical  observations  of  Dr.  McConnell,  ' '  H istory  of  the  American 
Episcopal  Church,"  pp.  264-276.  The  polity  of  this  church  seems  to  have 
suffered  for  want  of  a  States'  Rights  and  Strict  Construction  party.  The 
centrifugal  force  has  been  overbalanced  by  the  centripetal. 


2 1 2  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiii. 

Bishops-elect  White  and  Provoost  the  coveted  consecra- 
tion from  English  bishops.  The  only  hindrance  now  to 
this  long-desired  boon  was  in  the  supercilious  dilatoriness 
of  the  English  prelates  and  of  the  civil  authorities  to  whom 
they  were  subordinate.  They  were  evidently  in  a  sulky 
temper  over  the  overwhelming  defeat  of  the  British  arms. 
If  it  had  been  in  their  power  to  blockade  effectively  the 
channels  of  sacramental  grace,  there  is  no  sign  that  they 
would  have  consented  to  the  American  petition.  Happily 
there  were  other  courses  open.  i.  There  was  the  recourse 
to  presbyterial  ordination,  an  expedient  sanctioned,  when 
necessary,  by  the  authority  of  "the  judicious  Hooker," 
and  actually  recommended,  if  the  case  should  require,  by 
the  Rev.  William  White,  soon  to  be  consecrated  as  one  of 
the  first  American  bishops.  2.  Already  for  more  than  a 
half-century  the  Moravian  episcopate  had  been  present  and 
most  apostolically  active  in  America.  3.  The  Lutheran 
Episcopal  churches  of  Denmark  and  Sweden  were  fully 
competent  and  known  to  be  not  unwilling  to  confer  the 
episcopal  succession  on  the  American  candidates.  4.  There 
were  the  Scotch  nonjuring  bishops,  outlawed  for  political 
reasons  from  communion  with  the  English  church,  who 
were  tending  their  "  persecuted  remnant "  of  a  flock  in 
Scotland.  Theirs  was  a  not  less  valid  succession  than  those 
of  their  better-provided  English  brethren,  and  fully  as  hon- 
orable a  history.  It  was  due  to  the  separate  initiative  of 
the  Episcopalian  ministers  of  Connecticut,  and  to  the  per- 
sistence of  their  bishop-elect,  Samuel  Seabury,  that  the 
deadlock  imposed  by  the  Englishmen  was  broken.  In- 
heriting the  Puritan  spirit,  which  sought  2i  jus  divinum  in 
all  church  questions,  they  were  men  of  deeper  convictions 
and  "  higher  "  principles  than  their  more  southern  brethren. 
In  advance  of  the  plans  for  national  organization,  without 
conferring  with  flesh  and  blood,  they  had  met  and  acted, 


BISHOPS   CONSECRATED.  213 

and  their  candidate  for  consecration  was  in  London  urging 
his  claims,  before  the  ministers  in  the  Middle  States  had 
any  knowledge  of  what  was  doing.  After  a  year  of  costly 
and  vexatious  delay  in  London,  finding  no  progress  made 
and  no  hope  of  any,  he  proceeded  to  Aberdeen  and  was 
consecrated  bishop  November  14,  1 784.  It  was  more  than 
two  years  longer  before  the  English  bishops  succeeded  in 
finding  a  way  to  do  what  their  unrecognized  Scotch  breth- 
ren had  done  with  small  demur.  But  they  did  find  it. 
So  long  as  the  Americans  seemed  dependent  on  English 
consecration  they  could  not  get  it.  When  at  last  it  was 
made  quite  plain  that  they  could  and  would  do  without  it 
if  necessary,  they  were  more  than  welcome  to  it.  Dr. 
White  for  Pennsylvania,  and  Dr.  Provoost  for  New  York, 
were  consecrated  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  at  the 
chapel  of  Lambeth  Palace,  February  4,  1 787.  Dr.  Griffith, 
elected  for  Virginia,  failed  to  be  present ;  in  all  that 
great  diocese  there  was  not  interest  enough  felt  in  the 
matter  to  raise  the  money  to  pay  his  passage  to  England 
and  back. 

The  American  Episcopal  Church  was  at  last  in  a  condi- 
tion to  live.  Some  formidable  dangers  of  division  arising 
from  the  double  derivation  of  the  episcopate  were  happily 
averted  by  the  tact  and  statesmanship  of  Bishop  White, 
and  liturgical  changes  incidental  to  the  reconstitution  of 
the  church  were  made,  on  the  whole  with  cautious  judg- 
ment and  good  taste,  and  successfully  introduced.  But 
for  many  years  the  church  lived  only  a  languishing  life. 
Bishop  Provoost  of  New  York,  after  fourteen  years  of  ser- 
vice, demitted  his  functions  in  1801,  discouraged  about 
the  continuance  of  the  church.  He  "  thought  it  would 
die  out  with  the  old  colonial  families."  '  The  large  pros- 
perity of  this  church  dates  only  from  the  second  decade  of 

1  Tiffany,  pp.  385-399- 


214  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiii. 

this  century.     It  is  the  more  notable  for  the  brief  time  in 
which  so  much  has  been  accompHshed. 

The  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  organization  of  the 
Catholic  Church  for  the  United  States  were  not  less  seri- 
ous, and  were  overcome  with  equal  success,  but  not  with- 
out a  prolonged  struggle  against  opposition  from  within. 
It  is  not  easy  for  us,  in  view  either  of  the  antecedent  or  of 
the  subsequent  history,  to  realize  the  extreme  feebleness 
of  American  CathoHcism  at  the  birth  of  our  nation.  Ac- 
cording to  an  official  "  Relation  on  the  State  of  Religion  in 
the  United  States,"  presented  by  the  prefect  apostolic  in 
1785,  the  total  number  of  Catholics  in  the  entire  Union 
was  18,200,  exclusive  of  an  unascertainable  number,  desti- 
tute of  priests,  in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  The  entire  num- 
ber of  the  clergy  was  twenty-four,  most  of  them  former 
members  of  the  Society  of  Jesuits,  that  had  been  suppressed 
in  1773  by  the  famous  bull,  Domimis  ac  Rcdemptor,  of 
Clement  XIV.  Sorely  against  their  will,  these  mission- 
aries, hitherto  subject  only  to  the  discipline  of  their  own 
society,  were  transformed  into  secular  priests,  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  London.  After  the 
establishment  of  independence,  with  the  intense  jealousy 
felt  regarding  British  influence,  and  by  none  more  deeply 
and  more  reasonably  felt  than  by  the  Catholics,  this  juris- 
diction was  impracticable.  The  providentially  fit  man  for 
the  emergency  was  found  in  the  Rev.  John  Carroll,  of  an 
old  Maryland  family  distinguished  alike  for  patriotism  and 
for  faithfulness  to  Catholic  principles.  In  June,  1784,  he 
was  made  prefect  apostolic  over  the  Catholic  Church  in 
the  United  States,  and  the  dependence  on  British  juris- 
diction was  terminated. 

When,  however,  it  was  proposed  that  this  provisional 
arrangement  should  be  superseded  by  the  appointment  of 


AMERICAN  CATHOLIC   CHURCH. 


215 


a  bishop,  objections  not  unexpected  were  encountered 
from  among  the  clergy.  Aheady  we  have  had  occasion 
to  note  the  jealousy  of  episcopal  authority  that  is  felt  by 
the  clergy  of  the  regular  orders.  The  lately  disbanded 
Jesuits,  with  characteristic  flexibility  of  self-adaptation  to 
circumstances,  had  at  once  reincorporated  themselves 
under  another  name,  thus  to  hold  the  not  inconsiderable 
estates  of  their  order  in  the  State  of  Maryland.  But  the 
plans  of  these  energetic  men  either  to  control  the  bishop 
or  to  prevent  his  appointment  were  unsuccessful.  In 
December,  1790,  Bishop  Carroll,  having  been  consecrated 
in  England,  arrived  and  entered  upon  his  see  of  Baltimore. 
Difficulties,  through  which  there  were  not  many  prece- 
dents to  guide  him,  thickened  about  the  path  of  the  new 
prelate.  It  was  well  both  for  the  church  and  for  the  re- 
public that  he  was  a  man  not  only  versed  in  the  theology 
and  polity  of  his  church,  but  imbued  with  American  prin- 
ciples and  feelings.  The  first  conflict  that  vexed  the 
church  under  his  administration,  and  which  for  fifty  years 
continued  to  vex  his  associates  and  successors,  was  a  col- 
lision between  the  American  sentiment  for  local  and  in- 
dividual liberty  and  self-government,  and  the  absolutist 
spiritual  government  of  Rome.  The  Catholics  of  New 
York,  including  those  of  the  Spanish  and  French  legations, 
had  built  a  church  in  Barclay  Street,  then  on  the  northern 
outskirt  of  the  city;  and  they  had  the  very  natural  and 
just  feeling  that  they  had  a  right  to  do  what  they  would 
with  their  own  and  with  the  building  erected-  at  their 
charges.  They  proceeded  accordingly  to  put  in  charge 
of  it  priests  of  their  own  selection.  But  they  had  lost 
sight  of  the  countervailing  principle  that  if  they  had  a 
right  to  do  as  they  would  with  their  building,  the  bi.shop, 
as  representing  the  supreme  authority  in  the  church,  had 
a  like  right  to  do  as  he  would  with  his  clergy.     The  build- 


2l6  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiu. 

ing  was  theirs ;  but  it  was  for  the  bishop  to  say  what  ser- 
vices should  be  held  in  it,  or  whether  there  should  be  any 
services  in  it  at  all,  in  the  Roman  Catholic  communion. 
It  is  surprising  how  often  this  issue  was  made,  and  how 
repeatedly  and  obstinately  it  was  fought  out  in  various 
places,  when  the  final  result  was  so  inevitable.  The  hier- 
archical power  prevailed,  of  course,  but  after  much  irrita- 
tion between  priesthood  and  people,  and  "  great  loss  of 
souls  to  the  church."  ^  American  ideas  and  methods  were 
destined  profoundly  and  beneficially  to  affect  the  Roman 
Church  in  the  United  States,  but  not  by  the  revolutionary 
process  of  establishing  "  trusteeism,"  or  the  lay  control  of 
parishes.  The  damaging  results  of  such  disputes  to  both 
parties  and  to  their  common  interest  in  the  church  put  the 
two  parties  under  heavy  bonds  to  deal  by  each  other  with 
mutual  consideration.  The  tendency,  as  in  some  parallel 
cases,  is  toward  an  absolute  government  administered  on 
republican  principles,  the  authoritative  command  being 
given  with  cautious  consideration  of  the  disposition  of  the 
subject.  The  rights  of  the  laity  are  sufficiently  secured, 
first,  by  their  holding  the  purse,  and,  secondly,  in  a  com- 
munity in  which  the  Roman  is  only  one  of  many  churches 
held  in  like  esteem  and  making  like  claims  to  divine  au- 
thority, by  their  holding  in  reserve  the  right  of  withdrawal. 
Other  and  unwonted  difficulties  for  the  young  church 
lay  in  the  Babel  confusion  of  races  and  languages  among 
its  disciples,  and  in  the  lack  of  public  resources,  which 
could  be  supplied  no  otherwise  than  by  free  gift.  Yet 
another  difficulty  was  the  scant  supply  of  clergy ;  but 
events  which  about  this  time  began  to  spread  desolation 
among  the  institutions  of  Catholic  Europe  proved  to  be  of 
inestimable  benefit  to  the  ill-provided  CathoHcs  of  Amer- 
ica.    Rome  might  almost  have  been  content  to  see  the 

1  Bishop  O'Gorman,  pp.  269-323,  367,  399. 


AMERICAN  METHODISM. 


217 


wasting  and  destruction  in  her  ancient  strongholds,  for  the 
opportune  reinforcement  which  it  brought,  at  a  critical 
time,  to  the  renascent  church  in  the  New  World.  More 
important  than  the  priests  of  various  orders  and  divers 
languages,  who  came  all  equipped  for  mission  work  among 
immigrants  of  different  nationalities,  was  the  arrival  of  the 
Sulpitians  of  Paris,  fleeing  from  the  persecutions  of  the 
French  Revolution,  ready  for  their  special  work  of  training 
for  the  parish  priesthood.  The  founding  of  their  seminary 
in  Baltimore  in  1791,  for  the  training  of  a  native  clergy, 
was  the  best  security  that  had  yet  been  given  for  the 
permanence  of  the  Catholic  revival.  The  American  Catho- 
lic Church  was  a  small  affair  as  yet,  and  for  twenty  years 
to  come  was  to  continue  so ;  but  the  framework  was  pre- 
paring of  an  organization  sufficient  for  the  days  of  great 
things  that  were  before  it. 

The  most  revolutionary  change  suffered  by  any  religious 
body  in  America,  in  adjusting  itself  to  the  changed  con- 
ditions after  the  War  of  Independence,  was  that  suffered 
by  the  latest  arrived  and  most  rapidly  growing  of  them 
all.  We  have  seen  the  order  of  the  Wesleyan  preachers 
coming  so  tardily  across  the.  ocean,  and  propagated  with 
constantly  increasing  momentum  southward  from  the  bor- 
der of  Maryland.  Its  congregations  were  not  a  church  ; 
its  preachers  were  not  a  clergy.  Instituted  in  England 
by  a  narrow.  High-church  clergyman  of  the  established 
ciiurch,  its  preachers  were  simply  a  company  of  lay  mis- 
sionaries under  the  command  of  John  Wesley ;  its  adher- 
ents were  members  of  the  Church  of  England,  bound  to 
special  fideUty  to  their  duties  as  such  in  their  several  par- 
ish churches,  but  united  in  clubs  and  classes  for  the  mutual 
promotion  of  holy  living  in  an  unholy  age ;  and  its  chap- 
els and  other  property,  fruits  of  the  self-denial  of  many 


2 1 8  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiii. 

poor,  were  held  under  iron-bound  title-deeds,  subject  to 
the  control  of  John  Wesley  and  of  the  close  corporation  of 
preachers  to  whom  he  should  demit  them. 

It  seems  hardly  worthy  of  the  immense  practical  sagac- 
ity of  Wesley  that  he  should  have  thought  to  transplant 
this  system  unchanged  into  the  midst  of  circumstances  so 
widely  different  as  those  which  must  surround  it  in 
America.  And  yet  even  here,  where  the  best  work  of  his 
preachers  was  to  be  done  among  populations  not  only 
churchless,  but  out  of  reach  of  church  or  ministry  of  what- 
ever name,  in  those  Southern  States  in  which  nine  tenths 
of  his  penitents  and  converts  were  gained,  his  preachers 
were  warned  against  the  sacrilege  of  ministering  to  the 
craving  converts  the  Christian  ordinances  of  baptism  and 
the  holy  supper,  and  bidden  to  send  them  to  their  own 
churches — when  they  had  none.  The  wretched  incum- 
bents of  the  State  parishes  at  the  first  sounds  of  war  had 
scampered  from  the  field  like  hirelings  whose  own  the 
sheep  are  not,  and  the  demand  that  the  preachers  of  the 
word  should  also  minister  the  comfort  of  the  Christian  or- 
dinances became  too  strong  to  be  resisted.  The  call  of 
duty  and  necessity  seemed  to  the  preachers  gathered  at  a 
conference  at  Fluvanna  in  1779  to  be  a  call  from  God; 
and,  contrary  to  the  strong  objections  of  Wesley  and  As- 
bury,  they  chose  from  the  older  of  their  own  number  a 
committee  who  "  ordained  themselves,  and  proceeded  to 
ordain  and  set  apart  other  ministers  for  the  same  purpose 
— that  they  might  minister  the  holy  ordinances  to  the 
church  of  Christ."  ^  The  step  was  a  bold  one,  and  al- 
though it  seemed  to  be  attended  by  happy  spiritual  results, 
it  threatened  to  precipitate  a  division  of  "  the  Society  "  into 
two  factions.  The  progress  of  events,  the  establishment 
and  acknowledgment  of  American  independence,  and  the 

1  Buckley,  "  The  Methodists,"  pp.  182,  183. 


CHURCH  MOVING    WEST.  219 

constant  expansion  of  the  Methodist  work,  brought  its 
own  solution  of  the  divisive  questions. 

It  was  an  important  day  in  the  history  of  the  American 
church,  that  second  day  of  September,  i  784,  when  John 
Wesley,  assisted  by  other  presbyters  of  the  Church  of 
England,  laid  his  hands  in  benediction  upon  the  head  of 
Dr.  Thomas  Coke,  and  committed  to  him  the  superintend- 
ency  of  the  Methodist  work  in  America,  as  colleague  with 
Francis  Asbury.  On  the  arrival  of  Coke  in  America,  the 
preachers  were  hastily  summoned  together  in  conference 
at  Baltimore,  and  there,  in  Christmas  week  of  the  same 
year,  Asbury  was  ordained  successively  as  deacon,  as  elder, 
and  as  superintendent.  By  the  two  bishops  thus  consti- 
tuted were  ordained  elders  and  deacons,  and  Methodism 
became  a  living  church. 

The  two  decades  from  the  close  of  the  War  of  Independ- 
ence include  the  period  of  the  lowest  ebb-tide  of  vitality 
in  the  history  of  American  Christianity.  The  spirit  of 
half-belief  or  unbelief  that  prevailed  on  the  other  side  of 
the  sea,  both  in  the  church  and  out  of  it,  was  manifest  also 
here.  Happily  the  tide  of  foreign  immigration  at  this 
time  was  stayed,  and  the  church  had  opportunity  to  gather 
strength  for  the  immense  task  that  was  presently  to  be 
devolved  upon  it.  But  the  westward  movement  of  our 
own  population  was  now  beginning  to  pour  down  the 
western  slope  of  the  Alleghanies  into  the  great  Mississippi 
basin.  It  was  observed  by  the  Methodist  preachers  that 
the  members  of  their  societies  who  had,  through  fear, 
necessity,  or  choice,  moved  into  the  back  settlements  and 
into  new  parts  of  the  country,  as  soon  as  peace  was  settled 
and  the  way  was  open  solicited  the  preachers  to  come 
among  them,  and  so  the  work  followed  them  to  the  west.^ 
1  Jesse  Lee,  quoted  by  Dr.  Buckley,  p.  195. 


220  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiii. 

In  the  years  1791-1810  occurred  the  great  movement  of 
population  from  Virginia  to  Kentucky  and  from  Carolina 
to  Tennessee.  It  was  reckoned  that  one  fourth  of  the 
Baptists  of  Virginia  had  removed  to  Kentucky,  and  yet 
they  hardly  leavened  the  lump  of  early  frontier  barbar- 
ism. The  Presbyterian  Church,  working  in  its  favorite 
methods,  devised  campaigns  of  home  missionary  enterprise 
in  its  presbyteries  and  synods,  detailing  pastors  from  their 
parishes  for  temporary  mission  service  in  following  the 
movement  of  the  Scotch-Irish  migration  into  the  hill- 
country  in  which  it  seemed  to  find  its  congenial  habitat, 
and  from  which  its  powerful  influences  were  to  flow  in  all 
directions.  The  Congregationalists  of  New  England  in 
like  manner  followed  with  Christian  teaching  and  pastoral 
care  their  sons  moving  westward  to  occupy  the  rich  lands 
of  western  New  York  and  of  Ohio.  The  General  Associ- 
ation of  the  pastors  of  Connecticut,  solicitous  that  the 
work  of  missions  to  the  frontier  should  be  carried  forward 
without  loss  of  power  through  division  of  forces,  entered, 
in  1 80 1,  into  the  compact  with  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  Presbyterians  known  as  the  "  Plan  of  Union,"  by  which 
Christians  of  both  polities  might  cooperate  in  the  founding 
of  churches  and  in  maintaining  the  work  of  the  gospel. 

In  the  year  1803  the  most  important  political  event  since 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  the  purchase  of  Louisiana 
by  President  Jefi'erson,  opened  to  the  American  church  a 
new  and  immense  field  for  missionary  activity.  This  vast 
territory,  stretching  from  the  Mississippi  westward  to  the 
summits  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  nearly  doubling  the 
domain  of  the  United  States,  was  the  last  remainder  of  the 
great  projected  French  Catholic  empire  that  had  fallen  in 
1763.  Passed  back  and  forth  with  the  vicissitudes  of 
European  politics  between  French  and  Spanish  masters,  it 
had  made  small  progress  in  either  civilization  or  Christian- 


RELIGIOUS  LIBERTY.  221 

ity.  But  the  immense  possibilities  of  it  to  the  kingdoms 
of  this  world  and  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven  were  obvious 
to  every  intelligent  mind.  Not  many  years  were  to  pass 
before  it  was  to  become  an  arena  in  which  all  the  various 
forces  of  American  Christianity  were  to  be  found  contend- 
ing against  all  the  powers  of  darkness,  not  without  dealing 
some  mutual  blows  in  the  melley. 

The  review  of  this  period  must  not  close  without  advert- 
ing to  two  important  advances  in  public  practical  Christian- 
ity, in  which  (as  often  in  like  cases)  the  earnest  endeavors 
of  some  among  the  Christians  have  been  beholden  for 
success  to  uncongenial  reinforcements.  As  it  is  written, 
"The  earth  helped  the  woman." 

In  the  establishment  of  the  American  principle  of  the 
non-interference  of  the  state  with  religion,  and  the  equality 
of  all  religious  communions  before  the  law,  much  was  due, 
no  doubt,  to  the  mutual  jealousies  of  the  sects,  no  one  or 
two  of  which  were  strong  enough  to  maintain  exceptional 
pretensions  over  the  rest  combined.  Much  also  is  to  be 
imputed  to  the  indifTerentism  and  sometimes  the  anti- 
religious  sentiment  of  an  important  and  numerous  class  of 
doctrinaire  politicians  of  which  Jefferson  may  be  taken  as 
a  type.  So  far  as  this  work  was  a  work  of  intelligent  con- 
viction and  religious  faith,  the  chief  honor  of  it  must  be 
given  to  the  Baptists.  Other  sects,  notably  the  Presby- 
terians, had  been  energetic  and  efficient  in  demanding 
their  own  liberties ;  the  Friends  and  the  Baptists  agreed  in 
demanding  liberty  of  conscience  and  worship,  and  equality 
before  the  law,  for  all  alike.  But  the  active  labor  in  this 
cause  was  mainly  done  by  the  Baptists.  It  is  to  their  con- 
sistency and  constancy  in  the  warfare  against  the  privileges 
of  the  powerful  "  Standing  Order"  of  New  England,  and 
of  the  moribund  establishments  of  the  South,  that  we  are 


227  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiii. 

chiefly  indebted  for  the  final  triumph,  in  this  country,  of 
that  principle  of  the  separation  of  church  from  state  which 
is  one  of  the  largest  contributions  of  the  New  World  to 
civilization  and  to  the  church  universal. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  a  people  so  earnest  as  the 
Baptists  showed  themselves  in  the  promotion  of  religious 
liberty  should  be  forward  in  the  condemnation  of  American 
slavery.  We  have  already  seen  the  vigor  with  which  the 
Methodists,  having  all  their  strength  at  the  South,  levied  a 
spiritual  warfare  against  this  great  wrong.  It  was  at  the 
South  that  the  Baptists,  in  1 789,  "  Resolved,  That  slavery  is 
a  violent  deprivation  of  the  rights  of  nature,  and  inconsist- 
ent with  a  republican  government,  and  we  therefore  recom- 
mend it  to  our  brethren  to  make  use  of  every  legal  measure 
to  extirpate  this  horrid  evil  from  the  land."  ^  At  the  North, 
Jonathan  Edwards  the  Younger  is  conspicuous  in  the  un- 
broken succession  of  antislavery  churchmen.  His  ser- 
mon on  the  "  Injustice  and  Impolicy  of  the  Slave-trade," 
preached  in  1 791  before  the  Connecticut  Abolition  Society, 
of  which  President  Ezra  Stiles  was  the  head,  long  continued 
to  be  reprinted  and  circulated,  both  at  the  North  and  at  the 
South,  as  the  most  effective  argument  not  only  against  the 
slave-trade,  but  against  the  whole  system  of  slavery. 

It  will  not  be  intruding  needlessly  upon  the  difficult  field 
of  dogmatic  history  if  we  note  here  the  widely  important 
diversities  of  Christian  teaching  that  belong  to  this  which 
we  may  call  the  sub-Revolutionary  period. 

It  is  in  contradiction  to  our  modern  association  of  ideas 
to  read  that  the  prevailing  type  of  doctrine  among  the 
early  Baptists  of  New  England  was  Arminian.^  The  pro- 
nounced individualism  of  the  Baptist  churches,  and  the 
emphasis  which  they  place   upon  human  responsibility, 

1  Newman,  "  The  Baptists,"  p.  305.  2  Ibid.,  p.  243. 


CALVINIST  AND  ARMINIAN.  223 

might  naturally  have  created  a  tendency  in  this  direction ; 
but  a  cause  not  less  obvious  was  their  antagonism  to  the 
established  Congregationalism,  with  its  sharply  defined 
Calvinistic  statements.  The  public  challenging  of  these 
statements  made  a  favorite  issue  on  which  to  appeal  to  the 
people  from  their  constituted  teachers.  But  when  the 
South  and  Southwest  opened  itself  as  the  field  of  a  won- 
derfully rapid  expansion  before  the  feet  of  the  Baptist  evan- 
gelists, the  antagonism  was  quite  of  another  sort.  Their 
collaborators  and  sharp  competitors  in  the  great  and  noble 
work  of  planting  the  gospel  and  the  church  in  old  and 
neglected  fields  at  the  South,  and  carrying  them  westward 
to  the  continually  advancing  frontier  of  population,  were 
to  be  found  in  the  multiplying  army  of  the  Methodist 
itinerants  and  local  exhorters,  whose  theology,  enjoined 
upon  them  by  their  commission,  was  the  Arminianism  of 
John  Wesley.  No  explanation  is  apparent  for  the  revul- 
sion of  the  great  body  of  American  Baptists  into  a  Calvin- 
ism exaggerated  to  the  point  of  caricature,  except  the 
reaction  of  controversy  with  the  Methodists.  The  tend- 
ency of  the  two  parties  to  opposite  poles  of  dogma  was 
all  the  stronger  for  the  fact  that  on  both  sides  teachers  and 
taught  were  ahke  lacking  in  liberalizing  education.  The 
fact  that  two  by  far  the  most  numerous  denominations  of 
Christians  in  the  United  States  were  picketed  thus  over 
against  each  other  in  the  same  regions,  as  widely  differing 
from  each  other  in  doctrine  and  organization  as  the 
Dominican  order  from  the  Jesuit,  and  differing  somewhat  in 
the  same  way,  is  a  fact  that  invites  our  regret  and  disap- 
proval, but  at  the  same  time  compels  us  to  remember  its 
compensating  advantages. 

It  is  to  this  period  that  we  trace  the  head-waters  of 
several  important  existing  denominations. 


224  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiii. 

At  the  close  of  the  war  the  congregation  of  the  "  King's 
Chapel,"  the  oldest  Episcopal  church  in  New  England,  had 
been  thinned  and  had  lost  its  rector  in  the  general  migra- 
tion of  leading  Tory  families  to  Nova  Scotia.  At  the 
restoration  of  peace  it  was  served  in  the  capacity  of  lay 
reader  by  Mr.  James  Freeman,  a  young  graduate  of  Har- 
vard, who  came  soon  to  be  esteemed  very  highly  in  love 
both  for  his  work's  sake  and  for  his  own.  Being  chosen 
pastor  of  the  church,  he  was  not  many  months  in  finding 
that  many  things  in  the  English  Prayer-book  were  irrecon- 
cilable with  doubts  and  convictions  concerning  the  Trinity 
and  related  doctrines,  which  about  this  time  were  widely 
prevalent  among  theologians  both  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land and  outside  of  it.  In  June,  1785,  it  was  voted  in  the 
congregation,  by  a  very  large  majority,  to  amend  the  order 
of  worship  in  accordance  with  these  scruples.  The  changes 
were  in  a  direction  in  which  not  a  few  Episcopalians  were 
disposed  to  move,^  and  the  congregation  did  not  hesitate 
to  apply  for  ordination  for  their  pastor,  first  to  Bishop 
Seabury,  and  afterward,  with  better  hope  of  success,  to 
Bishop  Provoost.  Failing  here  also,  the  congregation  pro- 
ceeded to  induct  their  elect  pastor  into  his  office  without 
waiting  further  upon  bishops;  and  thus  "  the  first  Episco- 
pal church  in  New  England  became  the  first  Unitarian 
church  in  America."  It  was  not  the  beginning  of  Uni- 
tarianism  in  America,  for  this  had  long  been  "  in  the 
air."  But  it  was  the  first  distinct  organization  of  it.  How 
rapidly  and  powerfully  it  spread  within  narrow  geograph- 
ical limits,  and  how  widely  it  has  affected  the  course  of  reli- 
gious history,  must  appear  in  later  chapters. 

Close  as  might  seem  to  be  the  kindred  between  Unita- 
rianism  and  Universalism,  coeval  as  they  are  in  their  origin 

1  Tiffany,  p.  347 ;   McConnell,  p.  249. 


UNITARIAN  AND    UNIVERSALIST.  22$ 

as  organized  sects,  they  are  curiously  diverse  in  their  ori- 
gin. Each  of  them,  at  the  present  day,  holds  the  charac- 
teristic tenet  of  the  other;  in  general,  Unitarians  arc  Uni- 
versalists,  and  Universalists  are  Unitarians.'  But  in  the 
beginning  Unitarianism  was  a  bold  reactionar}'  protest 
against  leading  doctrines  of  the  prevailing  Calvinism  of 
New  England,  notably  against  the  doctrines  of  the  Trinit}', 
of  expiatory  atonement,  and  of  human  depravity  ;  and  it 
was  still  more  a  protest  against  the  intolerant  and  intoler- 
able dogmatism  of  the  sanhedrim  of  Jonathan  Edwards's 
successors,  in  their  cock-sure  expositions  of  the  methods 
of  the  divine  government  and  the  psychology  of  conversion. 
Universalism,  on  the  other  hand,  in  its  first  setting  forth 
in  America,  planted  itself  on  the  leading  "evangelical" 
doctrines,  which  its  leaders  had  earnestly  preached,  and 
made  them  the  major  premisses  of  its  argument.  Justifi- 
cation and  salvation,  said  John  Murray,  one  of  Whitefield's 
Calv'nistic  Methodist  preachers,  are  the  lot  of  those  for 
whom  Christ  died.  But  Christ  died  for  the  elect,  said  his 
Calvinistic  brethren.  Nay,  verily,  said  Murray  (in  this 
following  one  of  his  colleagues,  James  Relly) ;  what  saith 
the  Scripture?  "  Christ  died  for  all."  It  was  the  pinch 
of  this  argument  which  brought  New  England  theologians, 
beginning  with  Smalley  and  the  second  Edwards,  to  the 
acceptance  of  the  rectoral  theory  of  the  atonement,  and  so 
prepared  the  way  for  much  disputation  among  the  doctors 
of  the  next  century.^ 

Mr.  Murray  arrived  in  America  in  1770,  and  after  much 
going  to  and  fro  organized,  in  1779,  at  Gloucester,  Mass., 
the  first  congregation  in  America  on  distinctly  Univer- 
salist  principles.     But   other  men,   along    other   lines   of 

1  Dr.  Richard  Eddy,  "  The  Universalists,"  p.  429. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  392-397.  The  sermons  of  Smalley  were  preached  at  Walling- 
ford.  Conn.,  "  by  particular  request,  with  special  reference  to  the  Murrayan 
controversy." 


226  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiii. 

thought,  had  been  working  their  way  to  somewhat  similar 
conclusions.  In  1785  Elhanan  Winchester,  a  thoroughly 
Calvinistic  Baptist  minister  in  Philadelphia,  led  forth  his 
excommunicated  brethren,  one  hundred  strong,  and 
organized  them  into  a  "  Society  of  Universal  Baptists," 
holding  to  the  universal  restoration  of  mankind  to  holiness 
and  happiness.  The  two  differing  schools  fraternized  in 
a  convention  of  Universalist  churches  at  Philadelphia  in 
1 794,  at  which  articles  of  belief  and  a  plan  of  organization 
were  set  forth,  understood  to  be  from  the  pen  of  Dr. 
Benjamin  Rush ;  and  a  resolution  was  adopted  declaring 
the  holding  of  slaves  to  be  "  inconsistent  with  the  union 
of  the  human  race  in  a  common  Saviour,  and  the  obliga- 
tions to  mutual  and  universal  love  which  flow  from  that 
union." 

It  was  along  still  another  line  of  argument,  proceeding 
from  the  assumed  "  rectitude  of  human  nature,"  that  the 
Unitarians  came,  tardily  and  hesitatingly,  to  the  Univer- 
salist position.  The  long  persistence  of  definite  boundary 
lines  between  two  bodies  so  nearly  alike  in  their  tenets  is 
a  subject  worthy  of  study.  The  lines  seem  to  be  rather 
historical  and  social  than  theological.  The  distinction 
between  them  has  been  thus  epigrammatically  stated  :  that 
the  Universalist  holds  that  God  is  too  good  to  damn  a 
man;  the  Unitarian  holds  that  men  are  too  good  to  be 
damned. 

No  controversy  in  the  history  of  the  American  church 
has  been  more  deeply  marked  by  a  sincere  and  serious 
earnestness,  over  and  above  the  competitive  zeal  and  in- 
vidious acrimony  that  are  an  inevitable  admixture  in  such 
debates,  than  the  controversy  that  was  at  once  waged 
against  the  two  new  sects  claiming  the  title  "Liberal." 
It  was  sincerely  felt  by  their  antagonists  that,  while  the 
one  abandoned  the  foundation  of  the  Christian  faith,  the 


THE  "LIBERAL"   SECTS.  22/ 

other  destroyed  the  foundation  of  Christian  morality.  In 
the  early  propaganda  of  each  of  them  was  much  to  deepen 
this  mistrust.  When  the  standard  of  dissent  is  set  up  in 
any  community,  and  men  are  invited  to  it  in  the  name  of 
liberality,  nothing  can  hinder  its  becoming  a  rallying-point 
for  all  sorts  of  disaffected  souls,  not  only  the  liberal,  but 
the  loose.  The  story  of  the  controversy  belongs  to  later 
chapters  of  this  book.  It  is  safe  to  say  at  this  point  that 
the  early  orthodox  fears  have  at  least  not  been  fully  con- 
firmed by  the  sequel  up  to  this  date.  It  was  one  of  the 
most  strenuous  of  the  early  disputants  against  the  "  lib- 
eral "  opinions^  who  remarked  in  his  later  years,  concern- 
ing  the  Unitarian  saints,  that  it  seemed  as  if  their  exclu- 
sive contemplation  of  Jesus  Christ  in  his  human  character 
as  the  example  for  our  imitation  had  wrought  in  them  an 
exceptional  beauty  and  Christlikeness  of  living.  As  for 
the  Universalists,  the  record  of  their  fidelity,  as  a  body, 
to  the  various  interests  of  social  morality  is  not  surpassed 
by  that  of  any  denomination.  But  in  the  earlier  days  the 
conflict  against  the  two  sects  called  "  liberal  "  was  waged 
ruthlessly,  not  as  against  defective  or  erroneous  schemes 
of  doctrine,  but  as  against  distinctly  antichristian  heresies. 
There  is  instruction  to  be  gotten  from  studying,  in  com- 
parison, the  course  of  these  opinions  in  the  established 
churches  of  Great  Britain  and  among  the  unestablished 
churches  of  America.  Under  the  enforced  comprehen- 
siveness or  tolerance  of  a  national  church,  it  is  easier  for 
strange  doctrines  to  spread  within  the  pale.  Under  the 
American  plan  of  the  organization  of  Christianity  by 
voluntary  mutual  association  according  to  elective  affinity, 
with  freedom  to  receive  or  exclude,  the  flock  within  the 
fold  may  perhaps  be  kept  safer  from  contamination;  as 
when  the  Presbyterian  General  Assembly  in   1792,  and 

1  Leonard  Bacon,  of  New  Haven,  in  conversation. 


228  AMERICAN   CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiii. 

again  in  1 794,  decided  that  Universalists  be  not  admitted 
to  the  sealing  ordinances  of  the  gospel ;  ^  but  by  this 
course  the  excluded  opinion  is  compelled  to  intrench  itself 
both  for  defense  and  for  attack  in  a  sectarian  organization. 
It  is  a  practically  interesting  question,  the  anawer  to  which 
is  by  no  means  self-evident,  whether  Universalist  opinions 
would  have  been  less  prevalent  to-day  in  England  and 
Scotland  if  they  had  been  excluded  from  the  national 
churches  and  erected  into  a  sect  with  its  partisan  pulpits, 
presses,  and  propagandists ;  or  whether  they  would  have 
more  diffused  in  America  if,  instead  of  being  dealt  with  by 
process  of  excommunication  or  deposition,  they  had  been 
dealt  with  simply  by  argument.  This  is  one  of  the  many 
questions  which  history  raises,  but  which  (happily  for  him) 
it  does  not  fall  within  the  function  of  the  historian  to  answer. 

To  this  period  is  to  be  referred  the  origin  of  some  of 
the  minor  American  sects. 

The  "  United  Brethren  in  Christ "  grew  into  a  distinct 
organization  about  the  year  1800.  It  arose  incidentally 
to  the  Methodist  evangelism,  in  an  effort  on  the  part  of 
Philip  William  Otterbein,  of  the  German  Reformed 
Church,  and  Martin  Boehm,  of  the  Mennonites,  to  provide 
for  the  shepherdless  German-speaking  people  by  an 
adaptation  of  the  Wesleyan  methods.  Presently,  in  the 
natural  progress  of  language,  the  English  work  outgrew 
the  German.  It  is  now  doing  an  extensive  and  useful 
work  by  pulpit  and  press,  chiefly  in  Pennsylvania  and  the 
States  of  that  latitude.  The  reasons  for  its  continued 
existence  separate  from  the  Methodist  Church,  which  it 
closely  resembles  both  in  doctrine  and  in  polity,  are  more 
apparent  to  those  within  the  organization  than  to  super- 
ficial observers  from  outside. 

1  Eddy,  p.  387. 


SOME  MINOR   SECTS.  229 

The  organization  just  described  arose  from  the  unwill- 
ingness of  the  German  Reformed  Church  to  meet  the 
craving  needs  of  the  German  people  by  using  the  Wes- 
leyan  methods.  From  the  uxiwillingness  of  the  Metho- 
dist Church  to  use  the  German  language  arose  another 
organization,  "  the  Evangelical  Association,"  sometimes 
known,  from  the  name  of  its  founder,  by  the  somewhat 
grotesque  title  of  "  the  Albrights."  This  also  is  both 
Methodist  and  Episcopal,  a  reduced  copy  of  the  great 
Wesleyan  institution,  mainly  devoted  to  labors  among  the 
Germans. 

In  1 792  was  planted  at  Baltimore  the  first  American 
congregation  of  that  organization  of  disciples  of  Emanuel 
Swedenborg  which  had  been  begun  in  London  nine  years 
before  and  called  by  the  appropriately  fanciful  name  of 
"  the  Church  of  the  New  Jerusalem." 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE    SECOND    AWAKENING. 

The  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  show  the 
lowest  low-water  mark  of  the  lowest  ebb-tide  of  spiritual 
life  in  the  history  of  the  American  church.  The  demorali- 
zation of  army  life,  the  fury  of  political  factions,  the  catch- 
penny materialist  morality  of  Franklin,  the  philosophic 
deism  of  men  like  Jefferson,  and  the  popular  ribaldry  of 
Tom  Paine,  had  wrought,  together  with  other  untoward 
influences,  to  bring  about  a  condition  of  things  which  to 
the  eye  of  little  faith  seemed  almost  desperate. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  reaction  from  the  stormy 
excitements  of  the  Great  Awakening,  nothing  had  seemed 
to  arouse  the  New  England  churches  from  a  lethargic 
dullness;  so,  at  least,  it  seemed  to  those  who  recalled 
those  wonderful  days  of  old,  either  in  memory  or  by  tra- 
dition. We  have  a  gauge  of  the  general  decline  of  the 
public  morals,  in  the  condition  of  Yale  College  at  the  ac- 
cession of  President  D wight  in  1795,  as  described  in  the 
reminiscences  of  Lyman  Beecher,  then  a  sophomore. 

"  Before  he  came,  college  was  in  a  most  ungodly  state. 
The  college  church  was  almost  extinct.     Most  of  the  stu- 
dents were  skeptical,  and  rowdies  were  plenty.     Wine 
230 


LOJV  TIDE   IN  RELIGION.  23  1 

and  liquors  were  kept  in  many  rooms  ;  intemperance,  pro- 
fanity, gambling,  and  licentiousness  were  common.  I 
hardly  know  how  I  escaped.  .  .  .  That  was  the  day  of 
the  infidelity  of  the  Tom  Paine  school.  Boys  that 
dressed  flax  in  the  barn,  as  I  used  to,  read  Tom  Paine  and 
believed  him  ;  I  read  and  fought  him  all  the  way.  Never 
had  any  propensity  to  infidelity.  But  most  of  the  class 
before  me  were  infidels,  and  called  each  other  Voltaire, 
Rousseau,  D'Alembert,  etc."  ^ 

In  the  Middle  States  the  aspect  was  not  more  promis- 
ing. Princeton  College  had  been  closed  for  three  years 
of  the  Revolutionary  War.  In  i  782  there  were  only  two 
among  the  students  who  professed  themselves  Christians. 
The  Presbyterian  General  Assembly,  representing  the 
strongest  religious  force  in  that  region,  in  1 798  described 
the  then  existing  condition  of  the  country  in  these  terms : 

"  Formidable  innovations  and  convulsions  in  Europe 
threaten  destruction  to  morals  and  religion.  Scenes  of 
devastation  and  bloodshed  unexampled  in  the  history  of 
modern  nations  have  convulsed  the  world,  and  our  coun- 
try is  threatened  with  similar  calamities.  We  perceive 
with  pain  and  fearful  apprehension  a  general  dereliction 
of  religious  principles  and  practice  among  our  fellow-citi- 
zens, a  visible  and  prevailing  impiety  and  contempt  for 
the  laws  and  institutions  of  religion,  and  an  abounding 
infidelity,  which  in  many  instances  tends  to  atheism  itself. 
The  profligacy  and  corruption  of  the  public  morals  have 
advanced  with  a  progress  proportionate  to  our  declensioii 
in  religion.  Profaneness,  pride,  luxury,  injustice,  intem- 
perance, lewdness,  and  every  species  of  debauchery  and 
loose  indulgence  greatly  abound." 

'  "  Autobiography  of  Lyman  Beecher,"  vol.  i.,  p.  43.  The  same  charm- 
ing volume  contains  abundant  evidence  that  the  spirit  of  trne  religion  was 
cherished  in  the  homes  of  the  people,  while  there  were  so  many  public  signs 
of  apostasy. 


232  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiv. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Episcopalian  of  that  day 
the  prospect  was  even  more  disheartening.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  Bishop  Provoost  of  New  York  laid  down  his 
functions,  not  expecting  the  church  to  continue  much 
longer;  and  Bishop  Madison  of  Virginia  shared  the  de- 
spairing conviction  of  Chief-Justice  Marshall  that  the 
church  was  too  far  gone  ever  to  be  revived. i  Over  all 
this  period  the  historian  of  the  Lutheran  Church  writes 
up  the  title  "  Deterioration."  2  Proposals  were  set  on  foot 
looking  toward  the  merger  of  these  two  languishing  de- 
nominations. 

Even  the  Methodists,  the  fervor  of  whose  zeal  and 
vitality  of  whose  organization  had  withstood  what  seemed 
severer  tests,  felt  the  benumbing  influence  of  this  unhappy 
age.  For  three  years  ending  in  1 796  the  total  member- 
ship diminished  at  the  rate  of  about  four  thousand  a  year. 

Many  witnesses  agree  in  describing  the  moral  and  re- 
ligious condition  of  the  border  States  of  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  as  peculiarly  deplorable.  The  autobiography 
of  that  famous  pioneer  preacher,  Peter  Cartwright,  gives 
a  lively  picture  of  Kentucky  society  in  1 793  as  he  remem- 
bered it  in  his  old  age : 

"  Logan  County,  when  my  father  moved  into  it,  was 
called  'Rogues'  Harbor.'  Here  many  refugees  from  all 
parts  of  the  Union  fled  to  escape  punishment  or  justice ; 
for  although  there  was  law,  yet  it  could  not  be  executed, 
and  it  was  a  desperate  state  of  society.  Murderers,  horse- 
thieves,  highway  robbers,  and  counterfeiters  fled  there, 
until  they  combined  and  actually  formed  a  majority. 
Those  who  favored  a  better  state  of  morals  were  called 
'  Regulators.'  But  they  encountered  fierce  opposition 
from  the  '  Rogues,'  and  a  battle  was  fought  with  guns, 

1  Tiffany,  "  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,"  pp.  388,  394,  395. 

2  Dr.  Jacobs,  chap.  xix. 


REVIVAL   IN  THE    IVEST. 


233 


pistols,  dirks,  knives,  and  clubs,  in  which  the  '  Regulators 
were  defeated."  ^ 


The  people  that  walked  in  this  gross  darkness  beheld  a 
great  light.  In  1796  a  Presbyterian  minister,  James  Mc- 
Gready,  who  for  more  than  ten  years  had  done  useful  ser- 
vice in  Pennsylvania  and  North  Carolina,  assumed  charge 
of  several  Presbyterian  churches  in  that  very  Logan  County 
which  we  know  through  the  reminiscences  of  Peter  Cart- 
wright.  As  he  went  the  round  of  his  scattered  congrega- 
tions his  preaching  was  felt  to  have  peculiar  power  "  to 
arouse  false  professors,  to  awaken  a  dead  church,  and 
warn  sinners  and  lead  them  to  seek  the  new  spiritual  life 
which  he  himself  had  found."  Three  years  later  two 
brothers,  William  and  John  McGee,  one  a  Presbyterian 
minister  and  the  other  a  Methodist,  came  through  the 
beautiful  Cumberland  country  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee, 
speaking,  as  if  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  John  the  Baptist, 
to  multitudes  that  gathered  from  great  distances  to  hear 
them.  On  one  occasion,  in  the  woods  of  Logan  County, 
in  July,  1800,  the  gathered  families,  many  of  whom  came 
from  far,  tethered  their  teams  and  encamped  for  several 
days  for  the  unaccustomed  privilege  of  common  worship 
and  Christian  preaching.  This  is  believed  to  have  been 
the  first  American  camp-meeting — an  era  worth  remem- 
bering in  our  history.  Not  without  abundant  New  Testa- 
ment antecedents,  it  naturalized  itself  at  once  on  our  soil 
as  a  natural  expedient  for  scattered  frontier  populations 
unprovided  with  settled  institutions.  By  a  natural  process 
of  evolution,  adapting  itself  to  other  environments  and 
uses,  the  backwoods  camp-meeting  has  grown  into  the 
"  Chautauqua  "  assembly,  which  at  so  many  places  beside? 

1  "  Autobiography  of  Peter  Cartwright,"  quoted  by  Dorchester,  "  Chris- 
tianity in  the  United  States,"  p.  348. 


234  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY,  [Chap.  xiv. 

the  original  center  at  Chautauqua  Lake  has  grown  into  an 
important  and  most  characteristic  institution  of  American 
civilization. 

We  are  happy  in  having  an  account  of  some  of  these 
meetings  from  one  who  was  personally  and  sympatheti- 
cally interested  in  them.  For  in  the  spring  of  the  next 
year  Barton  Warren  Stone,  a  Presbyterian  minister  serv- 
ing his  two  congregations  of  Concord  and  Cane  Ridge  in 
Bourbon  County,  and  oppressed  with  a  sense  of  the  re- 
ligious apathy  prevailing  about  him,  made  the  long  jour- 
ney across  the  State  of  Kentucky  to  see  for  himself  the 
wonderful  things  of  which  he  had  heard,  and  afterward 
wrote  his  reminiscences. 

"  There,  on  the  edge  of  a  prairie  in  Logan  County, 
Kentucky,  the  multitudes  came  together  and  continued  a 
number  of  days  and  nights  encamped  on  the  ground,  dur- 
ing which  time  worship  was  carried  on  in  some  part  of  the 
encampment.  The  scene  was  new  to  me  and  passing 
strange.  It  baffled  description.  Many,  very  many,  fell 
down  as  men  slain  in  battle,  and  continued  for  hours  to- 
gether in  an  apparently  breathless  and  motionless  state, 
sometimes  for  a  few  moments  reviving  and  exhibiting 
symptoms  of  life  by  a  deep  groan  or  piercing  shriek,  or 
by  a  prayer  for  mercy  fervently  uttered.  After  lying 
there  for  hours  they  obtained  deliverance.  The  gloomy 
cloud  that  had  covered  their  faces  seemed  gradually  and 
visibly  to  disappear,  and  hope,  in  smiles,  brightened  into 
joy.  They  would  rise,  shouting  deHverance,  and  then 
would  address  the  surrounding  multitude  in  language  truly 
eloquent  and  impressive.  With  astonishment  did  I  hear 
men,  women,  and  children  declaring  the  wonderful  works 
of  God  and  the  glorious  mysteries  of  the  gospel.  Their  ap- 
peals were  solemn,  heart-penetrating,  bold,  and  free.  Under 
such  circumstances  many  others  would  fall  down  into  the 
same  state  from  which  the  speakers  had  just  been  delivered. 


THE  FIRST  CAMP-MEETINGS.  235 

"  Two  or  three  of  my  particular  acquaintances  from  a 
distance  were  struck  down.  I  sat  patiently  by  one  of 
them,  whom  I  knew  to  be  a  careless  sinner,  for  hours,  and 
observed  with  critical  attention  everything  that  passed, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  I  noticed  the  momentary 
revivings  as  from  death,  the  humble  confession  of  sins,  the 
fervent  prayer,  and  the  ultimate  deliverance ;  then  the 
solemn  thanks  and  praise  to  God,  and  affectionate  exhor- 
tation to  companions  and  to  the  people  around  to  repent 
and  come  to  Jesus.  I  was  astonished  at  the  knowledge 
of  gospel  truth  displayed  in  the  address.     The  effect  was 

1  that  several  sank  down  into  the  same  appearance  of  death. 

I  After  attending  to  many  such  cases,  my  conviction  was 

complete  that  it  was  a  good  work — the  work  of  God ;  nor 
has  my  mind  wavered  since  on  the  subject.  Much  did  I 
see  then,  and  much  have  I  seen  since,  that  I  consider  to 
be  fanaticism ;  but  this  should  not  condemn  the  work. 
The  devil  has  always  tried  to  ape  the  works  of  God,  to 

!  bring  them  into  disrepute ;  but  that  cannot  be  a  Satanic 

i  work  which  brings  men  to  humble  confession,  to  forsaking 

of  sin,  to  prayer,  fervent  praise  and  thanksgiving,  and  a 
sincere  and  affectionate  exhortation  to  sinners  to  repent 
and  come  to  Jesus  the  Saviour." 

! 

t  Profoundly  impressed  by  what  he  had  seen  and  heard, 

.;  Pastor  Stone  returned  to  his  double  parish  in  Bourbon 

I  County  and  rehearsed  the  story  of  it.     "  The  congregation 

I  was  affected  with  awful  solemnity,  and  many  returned 

;  home   weeping."     This   was   in    the    early    spring.     Not 

I  many  months  afterward  there  was  a  notable  springing  up 

1  of  this  seed. 

I 

j  "  A  memorable  meeting  was  held  at  Cane  Ridge  in 

August,  1 80 1.  The  roads  were  crowded  with  wagons, 
carriages,  horses,  and  footmen  moving  to  the  solemn  camp. 
It  was  judged  by  military  men  on  the  ground  that  between 
twenty    and    thirty    thousand    persons    were    assembled. 


236  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiv. 

Four  or  five  preachers  spoke  at  the  same  time  in  different 
parts  of  the  encampment  without  confusion.  The  Metho- 
dist and  Baptist  preachers  aided  in  the  work,  and  all  ap- 
peared cordially  united  in  it.  They  were  of  one  mind  and 
soul :  the  salvation  of  sinners  was  the  one  object.  We  all 
engaged  in  singing  the  same  songs,  all  united  in  prayer, 
all  preached  the  same  things.  .  .  .  The  numbers  converted 
will  be  known  only  in  eternity.  Many  things  transpired 
in  the  meeting  which  were  so  much  like  miracles  that  they 
had  the  same  effect  as  miracles  on  unbelievers.  By  them 
many  were  convinced  that  Jesus  was  the  Christ  and 
were  persuaded  to  submit  to  him.  This  meeting  con- 
tinued six  or  seven  days  and  nights,  and  would  have 
continued  longer,  but  food  for  the  sustenance  of  such  a 
multitude  failed. 

"  To  this  meeting  many  had  come  from  Ohio  and  other 
distant  parts.  These  returned  home  and  diffused  the  same 
spirit  in  their  respective  neighborhoods.  Similar  results 
followed.  So  low  had  religion  sunk,  and  such  careless- 
ness had  universally  prevailed,  that  I  have  thought  that 
nothing  common  could  have  arrested  and  held  the  atten- 
tion of  the  people."  ^ 

The  sober  and  cautious  tone  of  this  narrative  will  already 
have  impressed  the  reader.  These  are  not  the  words  of  a 
heated  enthusiast,  or  a  man  weakly  credulous.  We  may 
hesitate  to  accept  his  judgment,  but  may  safely  accept  his 
testimony,  amply  corroborated  as  it  is,  to  facts  which  he 
has  seen  and  heard. 

But  the  crucial  test  of  the  work,  the  test  prescribed  by 
the  Lord  of  the  church,  is  that  it  shall  be  known  by  its 
fruits.  And  this  test  it  seems  to  bear  well.  Dr.  Archi- 
bald Alexander,  had  in  high  reverence  in  the  Presbyterian 

1  See  B.  B.  Tyler,  "  History  of  the  Disciples,"  pp.  11-17;  R.  V.  Foster, 
"  The  Cumberland  Presbyterians,"  pp.  260-263  (American  Church  History 
Series,  vols,  xi.,  xii.). 


FRUITS  OF  REVIVAL.  2^7 

Church  as  a  wise  counselor  in  spiritual  matters,  made 
scrupulous  inquiry  into  the  results  of  this  revival,  and  re- 
ceived from  one  of  his  correspondents,  Dr.  George  A. 
Baxter,  who  made  an  early  visit  to  the  scenes  of  the  revi- 
val, the  following  testimony : 

"  On  my  way  I  was  informed  by  settlers  on  the  road 
that  the  character  of  Kentucky  travelers  was  entirely 
changed,  and  that  they  were  as  remarkable  for  sobriety 
as  they  had  formerly  been  for  dissoluteness  and  immorality. 
And  indeed  I  found  Kentucky  to  appearances  the  most 
moral  place  I  had  ever  seen.  A  profane  expression  was 
hardly  ever  heard.  A  religious  awe  seemed  to  pervade 
the  country.  Upon  the  whole,  I  think  the  revival  in 
Kentucky  the  most  extraordinary  that  has  ever  visited  the 
church  of  Christ ;  and,  all  things  considered,  it  was  pecul- 
iarly adapted  to  the  circumstances  of  the  country  into 
which  it  came.  Infidelity  was  triumphant  and  religion  was 
on  the  point  of  expiring.  Something  extraordinary  seemed 
necessary  to  arrest  the  attention  of  a  giddy  people  who 
were  ready  to  conclude  that  Christianity  was  a  fable  and 
futurity  a  delusion.  This  revival  has  done  it.  It  has  con- 
founded infidelity  and  brought  numbers  beyond  calcula- 
tion under  serious  impressions." 

A  sermon  preached  in  1803  to  the  Presbyterian  synod 
of  Kentucky,  by  the  Rev.  David  Rice,  has  the  value  of 
testimony  given  in  the  presence  of  other  competent  wit- 
nesses, and  liable  thus  to  be  questioned  or  contradicted. 
In  it  he  says  : 

"  Neighborhoods  noted  for  their  vicious  and  profligate 
manners  are  now  as  much  noted  for  their  piety  and  good 
order.  Drunkards,  profane  swearers,  liars,  quarrelsome 
persons,  etc.,  are  remarkably  reformed.  ...  A  number 
of  families  who  had  lived  apparently  without  the  fear  of 


238  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiv. 

God,  in  folly  and  in  vice,  without  any  religious  instruction 
or  any  proper  government,  are  now  reduced  to  order  and 
are  daily  joining  in  the  worship  of  God,  reading  his  word, 
singing  his  praises,  and  offering  up  their  supplications  to  a 
throne  of  grace.  Parents  who  seemed  formerly  to  have 
little  or  no  regard  for  the  salvation  of  their  children  are 
now  anxiously  concerned  for  their  salvation,  are  pleading 
for  them,  and  endeavoring  to  lead  them  to  Christ  and  train 
them  up  in  the  way  of  piety  and  virtue." 

That  same  year  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church,  in  its  annual  review  of  the  state  of  religion, 
adverted  with  emphasis  to  the  work  in  the  Cumberland 
country,  and  cited  remarkable  instances  of  conversion — 
malignant  opposers  of  vital  piety  convinced  and  reconciled, 
learned,  active,  and  conspicuous  infidels  becoming  signal 
monuments  of  that  grace  which  they  once  despised ;  and 
in  conclusion  declared  with  joy  that  "  the  state  and  pros- 
pects of  vital  religion  in  our  country  are  more  favorable 
and  encouraging  than  at  any  period  within  the  last  forty 
years."  ^ 

In  order  successfully  to  study  the  phenomena  of  this 
remarkable  passage  in  the  history  of  the  church,  it  is  nec- 
essary to  bear  in  mind  the  social  conditions  that  prevailed. 
A  population  perfervido  ingenio,  of  a  temper  peculiarly 
susceptible  of  intense  excitement,  transplanted  into  a  wild 
country,  under  little  control  either  of  conventionality  or 
law,  deeply  ingrained  from  many  generations  with  the 
religious  sentiment,  but  broken  loose  from  the  control  of 
it  and  living  consciously  in  reckless  disregard  of  the  law 
of  God,  is  suddenly  aroused  to  a  sense  of  its  apostasy  and 
wickedness.  The  people  do  not  hear  the  word  of  God 
from  Sabbath  to  Sabbath,  or  even  from  evening  to  even- 

1  Tyler,  "The  Disciples";  Foster,  "The  Cumberland  Presbyterians," 
ubi  supra. 


NER VOL'S  EPIDEMICS. 


239 


ing,  and  take  it  home  with  them  and  ponder  it  amid  the 
avocations  of  daily  business ;  by  the  conditions,  they  are 
sequestered  for  days  together  in  the  wilderness  for  the 
exclusive  contemplation  of  momentous  truths  pressed 
upon  the  mind  with  incessant  and  impassioned  iteration ; 
and  they  remain  together,  an  agitated  throng,  not  of  men 
only,  but  of  women  and  children.  The  student  of  psy- 
chology recognizes  at  once  that  here  are  present  in  an  un- 
usual combination  the  conditions  not  merely  of  the  ready 
propagation  of  influence  by  example  and  persuasion,  but 
of  those  nervous,  mental,  or  spiritual  infections  which 
make  so  important  a  figure  in  the  world's  history,  civil, 
military,  or  religious.  It  is  wholly  in  accord  with  human 
nature  that  the  physical  manifestations  attendant  on  re- 
ligious excitement  in  these  circumstances  should  be  of  an 
intense  and  extravagant  sort. 

And  such  indeed  they  were.  Sudden  outcries,  hysteric 
weeping  and  laughter,  faintings,  catalepsies,  trances,  were 
customary  concomitants  of  the  revival  preaching.  Mul- 
titudes fell  prostrate  on  the  ground,  "  spiritually  slain,"  as 
it  was  said.  Lest  the  helpless  bodies  should  be  trampled 
on  by  the  surging  crowd,  they  were  taken  up  and  laid 
in  rows  on  the  floor  of  the  neighboring  meeting-house. 
"  Some  lay  quiet,  unable  to  move  or  speak.  Some  talked, 
but  could  not  move.  Some  beat  the  floor  with  their  heels. 
Some,  shrieking  in  agony,  bounded  about,  it  is  said,  like 
a  live  fish  out  of  water.  Many  lay  down  and  rolled  over 
and  over  for  hours  at  a  time.  Others  rushed  wildly  over 
the  stumps  and  benches,  and  then  plunged,  shouting '  Lost ! 
Lost!  '  into  the  forest." 

As  the  revival  went  on  and  the  camp-meeting  grew  to 
be  a  custom  and  an  institution,  this  nervous  epidemic  took 
on  certain  recognizable  forms,  one  of  which  was  known 
as  "  the  jerks."     This  malady  "  began  in  the  head  and 


II 


240  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiv. 

spread  rapidly  to  the  feet.  The  head  would  be  thrown 
from  side  to  side  so  swiftly  that  the  features  would  be 
blotted  out  and  the  hair  made  to  snap.  When  the  body 
was  affected  the  sufferer  was  hurled  over  hindrances  that 
came  in  his  way,  and  finally  dashed  on  the  ground,  to 
bounce  about  Hke  a  ball."  The  eccentric  Lorenzo  Dow, 
whose  freaks  of  eloquence  and  humor  are  remembered  by 
many  now  living,  speaks  from  his  own  observation  on  the 
subject : 

"  I  have  passed  a  meeting-house  where  I  observed  the 
undergrowth  had  been  cut  for  a  camp-meeting,  and  from 
fifty  to  a  hundred  saplings  were  left  breast-high  on  pur- 
pose for  persons  who  were  '  jerked '  to  hold  on  to.  I 
observed  where  they  had  held  on  they  had  kicked  up  the 
earth  as  a  horse  stamping  flies.  ...  I  believe  it  does  not 
affect  those  naturalists  who  wish  to  get  it  to  philosophize 
about  it;  and  rarely  those  who  are  the  most  pious;  but 
the  lukewarm,  lazy  professor  is  subject  to  it.  The  wicked 
fear  it  and  are  subject  to  it ;  but  the  persecutors  are  more 
subject  to  it  than  any,  and  they  have  sometimes  cursed 
and  sworn  and  damned  it  while  jerking."  i 

There  is  nothing  improbable  in  the  claim  that  phenom- 
ena like  these,  strange,  weird,  startling,  "  were  so  much 
like  miracles  that  they  had  the  same  effect  as  miracles  on 

1  Let  me  add  an  illustrative  instance  related  to  me  by  the  distinguished 
Methodist,  Dr.  David  P.  Durbin.  Standing  near  the  platform  from  which 
he  w^as  to  preach  at  a  camp-meeting,  he  observed  a  powerfully  built  young 
backwoodsman  who  was  manifestly  there  with  no  better  intent  than  to  disturb 
and  break  up  the  meeting.  Presently  it  became  evident  that  the  young  man 
was  conscious  of  some  influence  taking  hold  of  him  to  which  he  was  resolved 
not  to  yield  ;  he  clutched  with  both  hands  a  hickory  sapling  next  which  he  was 
standing,  to  hold  himself  steady,  but  was  whirled  round  and  round,  until  the 
bark  of  the  sapling  peeled  off  under  his  grasp.  But,  as  in  the  cases  referred 
to  by  Dow,  the  attack  was  attended  by  no  religious  sentiment  whatever. 

On  the  manifestations  in  the  Cumberland  country,  see  McMasters,  "  United 
States,"  vol.  ii.,  pp.  581,  582,  and  the  sources  there  cited.  For  some  judi- 
cious remarks  on  the  general  subject,  see  Buckley,  "  Methodism,"  pp.  217-224. 


TM'O   ERRORS   OF    THE    CHlRCfl.  24 1 

unbelievers."  They  helped  break  up  the  apathetic  torpor 
of  the  church  and  summon  the  multitudes  into  the  wilder- 
ness to  hear  the  preaching  of  repentance  and  the  remission 
of  sins.  But  they  had  some  lamentable  results.  Those 
who,  like  many  among  the  Methodists/  found  in  them  the 
direct  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  were  thereby  started  along 
the  perilous  incline  toward  enthusiasm  and  fanaticism. 
Those,  on  the  other  hand,  repelled  by  the  grotesqueness 
and  extravagance  of  these  manifestations,  who  were  led  to 
distrust  or  condemn  the  good  work  with  which  they  were 
associated,  fell  into  a  graver  error.  This  was  the  error  into 
which,  to  its  cost,  the  Presbyterian  Church  was  by  and  by 
drawn  in  dealing  with  questions  that  emerged  from  these 
agitations.  The  revival  gave  rise  to  two  new  sects,  both 
of  them  marked  by  the  fervor  of  spirit  that  characterized 
the  time,  and  both  of  them  finding  their  principal  habitat 
in  the  same  western  region.  The  Cumberland  Presbyte- 
rians, now  grown  to  large  numbers  and  deserved  influence 
and  dignity  in  the  fellowship  of  American  sects,  separated 
themselves  from  the  main  body  of  Presbyterians  by  refus- 
ing to  accept,  in  face  of  the  craving  needs  of  the  pastor- 
less  population  all  about  them,  the  arbitrary  rule  shutting 
the  door  of  access  to  the  Presbyterian  ministry  to  all  can- 
didates, how  great  soever  their  other  qualifications,  who 
lacked  a  classical  education.  Separating  on  this  issue, 
they  took  the  opportunity  to  amend  the  generally  ac- 
cepted doctrinal  statements  of  the  Presbyterian  churches 
by  mitigating  those  utterances  which  seemed  to  them,  as 
they  have  seemed  to  many  others,  to  err  in  the  direction 
of  fatalism. 

About  the  same  time  there  was  manifested  in  various 
quarters  a  generous  revolt  against  the  existence  and  mul- 
tiplication of  mutually  exclusive  sects  in  the  Christian 

1  .So  Dr.  Buckley,  "  Methodism,"  p.  217. 


242  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiv. 

family,  each  limited  by  humanly  devised  doctrinal  articles 
and  branded  with  partisan  names.  How  these  various 
protesting  elements  came  together  on  the  sole  basis  of  a 
common  faith  in  Christ  and  a  common  acceptance  of  the 
divine  authority  of  the  Bible ;  how,  not  intending  it,  they 
came  to  be  themselves  a  new  sect ;  and  how,  struggling  in 
vain  against  the  inexorable  laws  of  language,  they  came 
to  be  distinguished  by  names,  as  Campbellite  Baptist, 
Christ-tan  (with  a  long  i),  and  {KaT'  e^oxrjv)  Disciples,  are 
points  on  which  interesting  and  instructive  light  is  shed  in 
the  history  by  Dr.  B.  B.  Tyler.i 

The  great  revival  of  the  West  and  Southwest  was  not 
the  only  revival,  and  not  even  the  earliest  revival,  of  that 
time  of  crisis.  As  early  as  1792  the  long  inertia  of  the 
eastern  churches  began  to  be  broken  here  and  there  by 
signs  of  growing  earnestness  and  attentiveness  to  spiritual 
things.  There  was  Httle  of  excited  agitation.  There  was 
no  preaching  of  famous  evangelists.  There  were  no  im- 
posing convocations.  Only  in  many  and  many  of  those 
country  towns  in-which,  at  that  time,  the  main  strength  of 
the  population  lay,  the  labors  of  faithful  pastors  began  to 
be  rewarded  with  large  ingatherings  of  penitent  believers. 
The  languishing  churches  grew  strong  and  hopeful,  and 
the  insolent  infidelity  of  the  times  was  abashed.  With 
such  sober  simplicity  was  the  work  of  the  gospel  carried 
forward,  in  the  opening  years  of  this  century,  among  the 
churches  and  pastors  that  had  learned  wisdom  from  the 
mistakes  made  in  the  Great  Awakening,  that  there  are  few 
striking  incidents  for  the  historian.  Hardly  any  man  is  to 
be  pointed  out  as  a  preeminent  leader  of  the  church  at 
this  period.  If  to  any  one,  this  place  of  honor  belongs  to 
Timothy  Dwight,  grandson  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  whose 

1  American  Church  History  Series,  vol.  xii. 


REVIVAL    AT   THE  EAST. 


243 


accession  to  the  presidency  of  Yale  CoUeg^e  at  the  darkest 
hour  in  its  history  marked  the  turning-point.  We  have 
already  learned  from  the  reminiscences  of  Lyman  Beecher 
how  low  the  college  had  sunk  in  point  of  religious  charac- 
ter, when  most  of  the  class  above  him  were  openly  boast- 
ful of  being  infidelsJ  How  the  new  president  dealt  with 
them  is  well  described  by  the  same  witness : 

"  They  thought  the  faculty  were  afraid  of  free  discus- 
sion. But  when  they  handed  Dr.  Dwight  a  list  of  sub- 
jects for  class  disputation,  to  their  surprise,  he  selected 
this :  '  Is  the  Bible  the  word  of  God  ?  '  and  told  them  to 
do  their  best.  He  heard  all  they  had  to  say,  answered 
them,  and  there  was  an  end.  He  preached  incessantly 
for  six  months  on  the  subject,  and  all  infidelity  skulked 
and  hid  its  head.  He  elaborated  his  theological  system 
in  a  series  of  forenoon  sermons  in  the  chapel ;  the  after- 
noon discourses  were  practical.  The  original  design  of 
Yale  College  was  to  found  a  divinity  school.  To  a 
mind  appreciative,  like  mine,  his  preaching  was  a  contin- 
ual course  of  education  and  a  continual  feast.  He  was 
copious  and  polished  in  style,  though  disciplined  and  logi- 
cal. There  was  a  pith  and  power  of  doctrine  there  that 
has  not  been  since  surpassed,  if  equaled."  ^ 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  to  any  man  of  his  genera- 
tion it  was  given  to  exercise  a  wider  and  more  beneficent 
influence  over  the  American  church  than  that  of  President 
Dwight.  His  system  of  "  Theology  Explained  and  De- 
fended in  a  Series  of  Sermons,"  a  theology  meant  to  be 
preached  and  made  effective  in  convincing  men  and  con- 
verting them  to  the  service  of  God,  was  so  constructed  as 
to  be  completed  within  the  four  years  of  the  college  cur- 
riculum, so  that  every  graduate  should  have  heard  the 

1  See  above,  pp.  230,  231. 

2  "  Autobiography  of  Lyman  Beecher,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  43,  44. 


244  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xiv. 

whole  of  it.  The  influence  of  it  has  not  been  limited  by 
the  boundaries  of  our  country,  nor  has  it  expired  with  the 
century  just  completed  since  President  Dwight's  accession. 

At  the  East  also,  as  well  as  at  the  West,  the  quickening 
of  rehgious  thought  and  feeling  had  the  common  effect  of 
alienating  and  disrupting.  Diverging  tendencies,  which 
had  begun  to  disclose  themselves  in  the  discussions  be- 
tween Edwards  and  Chauncy  in  their  respective  volumes 
of  "  Thoughts "  on  the  Great  Awakening,  became  em- 
phasized in  the  revival  of  1800.  That  liberalism  which 
had  begun  as  a  protest  against  a  too  peremptory  style 
of  dogmatism  was  rapidly  advancing  toward  a  dogmatic 
denial  of  points  deemed  by  the  opposite  party  to  be  essen- 
tial. Dogmatic  differences  were  aggravated  by  differences 
of  taste  and  temperament,  and  everything  was  working 
toward  the  schism  by  which  some  sincere  and  zealous 
souls  should  seek  to  do  God  service. 

In  one  most  important  particular  the  revival  of  1800 
was  happily  distinguished  from  the  Great  Awakening  of 
1 740.  It  was  not  done  and  over  with  at  the  end  of  a  few 
years,  and  then  followed  by  a  long  period  of  reaction.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  a  long  period  of  vigorous  and 
"  abundant  life,"  moving  forward,  not,  indeed,  with  even 
and  unvarying  flow,  yet  with  continuous  current,  marked 
with  those  alternations  of  exaltation  and  subsidence  which 
seem,  whether  for  evil  or  for  good,  to  have  become  a  fixed 
characteristic  of  American  church  history. 

The  widespread  revivals  of  the  first  decade  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  saved  the  church  of  Christ  in  America  from 
its  low  estate  and  girded  it  for  stupendous  tasks  that  were 
about  to  be  devolved  on  it.  In  the  glow  of  this  renewed 
fervor,  the  churches  of  New  England  successfully  made 
the  difficult  transition  from  establishment  to  self-support 
and  to  the  costly  enterprises  of  aggressive  evangelization 


AX  OPEN  DOOR.  245 

into  which,  in  company  with  other  churches  to  the  South 
and  West,  they  were  about  to  enter.  The  Christianity  of 
the  country  was  prepared  and  equipped  to  attend  with 
equal  pace  the  prodigious  rush  of  population  across  the 
breadth  of  the  Great  Valley,  and  to  give  welcome  to  the 
invading  host  of  immigrants  which  before  the  end  of  a 
half-century  was  to  effect  its  entrance  into  our  territory  at 
the  rate  of  a  thousand  a  day.  It  was  to  accommodate 
itself  to  changing  social  conditions,  as  the  once  agricul- 
tural population  began  to  concentrate  itself  in  factory 
villages  and  commercial  towns.  It  was  to  carry  on  sys- 
tematic campaigns  of  warfare  against  instituted  social 
wrong,  such  as  the  drinking  usages  of  society,  the  savage 
code  of  dueling,  the  public  sanction  of  slavery.  And  it 
was  to  enter  the  "effectual  door"  which  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  century  opened  wider  and  wider  to  admit  the 
gospel  and  the  church  to  every  nation  under  heaven. 


I 


CHAPTER   XV. 

ORGANIZED  BENEFICENCE. 

When  the  Presbyterian  General  Assembly,  in  1803, 
made  a  studious  review  of  the  revivals  which  for  several 
years  had  been  in  progress,  especially  at  the  South  and 
West,  it  included  in  its  "  Narrative  "  the  following  obser- 
vations : 

"  The  Assembly  observe  with  great  pleasure  that  the 
desire  for  spreading  the  gospel  among  the  blacks  and 
among  the  savage  tribes  on  our  borders  has  been  rapidly 
increasing  during  the  last  year.  The  Assembly  take 
notice  of  this  circumstance  with  the  more  satisfaction,  as 
it  not  only  affords  a  pleasing  presage  of  the  spread  of  the 
gospel,  but  also  furnishes  agreeable  evidence  of  the  genu- 
ineness and  the  benign  tendency  of  that  spirit  which  God 
has  been  pleased  to  pour  out  upon  his  people." 

In  New  England  the  like  result  had  already,  several 
years  before,  followed  upon  the  like  antecedent.  In  the 
year  1798  the  "Missionary  Society  of  Connecticut"  was 
constituted,  having  for  its  object  "  to  Christianize  the 
heathen  in  North  America,  and  to  support  and  promote 
Christian  knowledge  in  the  new  settlements  within  the 
United  States";  and  in  August,  1800,  its  first  missionary, 
David  Bacon,  engaged  at  a  salary  of  "  one  hundred  and 
246 


BEGINNIXG   OF  FOREIGN  MISSIONS.  247 

ten  cents  per  day,"  set  out  for  the  wilderness  south  and 
west  of  Lake  Erie,  "  afoot  and  alone,  with  no  more  lug- 
gage than  he  could  carry  on  his  person,"  to  visit  the  wild 
tribes  of  that  region,  "  to  explore  their  situation,  and  learn 
their  feelings  with  respect  to  Christianity,  and,  so  far  as 
he  had  opportunity,  to  teach  them  its  doctrines  and 
duties."  The  name  forms  a  link  in  the  bright  succession 
from  John  Eliot  to  this  day.  But  it  must  needs  be  that 
some  suflfer  as  victims  of  the  inexperience  of  those  who 
are  first  to  take  direction  of  an  untried  enterprise.  The 
abandonment  of  its  first  missionary  by  one  of  the  first  mis- 
sionary societies,  leaving  him  helpless  in  the  wilderness, 
was  a  brief  lesson  in  the  economy  of  missions  opportunely 
given  at  the  outset  of  the  American  mission  work,  and 
happily  had  no  need  to  be  repeated.^ 

David  Bacon,  like  Henry  Martyn,  who  at  that  same 
time,  in  far  different  surroundings,  was  intent  upon  his 
plans  of  mission  work  in  India,  was  own  son  in  the  faith  to 
David  Brainerd.  But  they  were  elder  sons  in  a  great 
family.  The  pathetic  story  of  that  heroic  youth,  as  told 
by  Jonathan  Edwards,  was  a  classic  at  that  time  in  almost 
every  country  parsonage ;  but  its  influence  was  especially 
felt  in  the  colleges,  now  no  longer,  as  a  few  years  earlier, 
the  seats  of  the  scornful,  but  the  homes  of  serious  and  re- 
ligious learning  which  they  were  meant  to  be  by  their 
founders. 

Of  the  advancement  of  Christian  civilization  in  the  first 
quarter-century  from  the  achievement  of  independence 
there  is  no  more  distinguished  monument  than  the  increase, 
through  those  troubled  and  impoverished  years,  of  the 
institutions  of  secular  and  sacred  learning.  The  really 
successful  and  effective  colleges  that  had  survived  from 
the  colonial  period  were  hardly  a  half-dozen.  Up  to  18 10 
1  "  Life  of  David  Bacon,"  by  his  son  (Boston,  1876). 


248  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xv. 

these  had  been  reinforced  by  as  many  more.  By  far  the 
greater  number  of  them  were  founded  by  the  New  Eng- 
land Congregationalists,  to  whom  this  has  ever  been  a 
favorite  field  of  activity.  But  special  honor  must  be  paid 
to  the  wise  and  courageous  and  nobly  successful  enter- 
prise of  large-minded  and  large-hearted  men  among  the 
Baptists,  who  as  early  as  1764,  boldly  breasting  a  current 
of  unworthy  prejudice  in  their  own  denomination,  began 
the  work  of  Brown  University  at  Providence,  which,  car- 
ried forward  by  a  notable  succession  of  great  educators, 
has  been  set  in  the  front  rank  of  existing  American  insti- 
tutions of  learning.  After  the  revivals  of  1800  these 
Christian  colleges  were  not  only  attended  by  students  com- 
ing from  zealous  and  fervid  churches ;  they  themselves 
became  the  foci  from  which  high  and  noble  spiritual  influ- 
ences were  radiated  through  the  land.  It  was  in  com- 
munities like  these  that  the  example  of  such  lives  as  that 
of  Brainerd  stirred  up  generous  young  minds  to  a  chival- 
rous and  even  ascetic  delight  in  attempting  great  labors 
and  enduring  great  sacrifices  as  soldiers  under  the  Cap- 
tain of  salvation. 

It  was  at  Williams  College,  then  just  planted  in  the 
Berkshire  hills,  that  a  little  coterie  of  students  was  formed 
which,  for  the  grandeur  of  the  consequences  that  flowed 
from  it,  is  worthy  to  be  named  in  history  beside  the  Holy 
Club  of  Oxford  in  1730,  and  the  friends  at  Oriel  College 
in  1830.  Samuel  J.  Mills  came  to  Williams  College  in 
1806  from  the  parsonage  of  "Father  Mills"  of  Torring- 
ford,  concerning  whom  quaint  traditions  and  even  memo- 
ries still  linger  in  the  neighboring  parishes  of  Litchfield 
County,  Connecticut.  Around  this  young  student  gath- 
ered a  circle  of  men  like-minded.  The  shade  of  a  lonely 
haystack  was  their  oratory ;  the  pledges  by  which  they 
bound    themselves    to   a    life-work   for    the    kingdom  of 


THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARIES.  249 

heaven  remind  one  of  the  mutual  vows  of  the  earliest 
friends  of  Loyola.  Some  of  the  youths  went  soon  to  the 
theological  seminary,  and  at  once  leavened  that  commu- 
nity with  their  own  spirit. 

The  seminary — there  was  only  one  in  all  Protestant 
America.  As  early  as  1791  the  Sulpitian  fathers  had 
organized  their  seminary  at  Baltimore.  But  it  was  not 
until  1808  that  any  institution  for  theological  studies  was 
open  to  candidates  for  the  Protestant  ministry.  Up  to 
that  time  such  studies  were  made  in  the  regular  college 
curriculum,  which  was  distinctly  theological  in  character; 
and  it  was  common  for  the  graduate  to  spend  an  addi- 
tional year  at  the  college  for  special  study  under  the 
president  or  the  one  professor  of  divinity.  But  many 
country  parsonages  that  were  tenanted  by  men  of  fame  as 
writers  and  teachers  were  greatly  frequented  by  young 
men  preparing  themselves  for  the  work  of  preaching. 

The  change  to  the  modern  method  of  education  for  the 
ministry  was  a  sudden  one.  It  was  precipitated  by  an 
event  which  has  not  even  yet  ceased  to  be  looked  on  by 
the  losing  party  with  honest  lamentation  and  with  an 
unnecessary  amount  of  sectarian  acrimony.  The  divinity 
professorship  in  Harvard  College,  founded  in  1722^  by 
Thomas  Hollis,  of  London,  a  Baptist  friend  of  New  Eng- 
land, was  filled,  after  a  long  struggle  and  an  impassioned 
protest,  by  the  election  of  Henry  Ware,  an  avowed  and 
representative  Unitarian.  It  was  a  distinct  announcement 
that  the  government  of  the  college  had  taken  sides  in  the 
impending  conflict,  in  opposition  to  the  system  of  religious 
doctrine  to  the  maintenance  of  which  the  college  had 
from  its  foundation  been  devoted.  The  significance  of 
the  fact  was  not  mistaken  by  either  party.  It  meant  that 
the  two  tendencies  which  had  been  recognizable  from 
1  Compare  the  claim  of  priority  for  the  Dutch  churcht  p.  ■Si.  *^t£. 


250  'AMERICAX  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xv. 

long  before  the  Great  Awakening  were  drawing  asunder, 
and  that  thenceforth  it  must  be  expected  that  the  vast  in- 
fluence of  the  venerable  college,  in  the  clergy  and  in 
society,  would  be  given  to  the  Liberal  side.  The  dismay 
of  one  party  and  the  exultation  of  the  other  were  alike 
well  grounded.  The  cry  of  the  Orthodox  was  "To  your 
tents,  O  Israel!"  Lines  of  ecclesiastical  non-intercourse 
were  drawn.  Church  was  divided  from  church,  and  family 
from  family.  When  the  forces  and  the  losses  on  each  side 
came  to  be  reckoned  up,  there  was  a  double  wonder :  First, 
at  the  narrow  boundaries  by  which  the  Unitarian  defec- 
tion was  circumscribed :  "  A  radius  of  thirty-five  miles 
from  Boston  as  a  center  would  sweep  almost  the  whole 
field  of  its  history  and  influence;"^  and  then  at  the 
sweeping  completeness  of  it  within  these  bounds ;  as  Mrs. 
H.  B.  Stowe  summed  up  the  situation  at  Boston,  "  All 
the  literary  men  of  Massachusetts  were  Unitarian ;  all  the 
trustees  and  professors  of  Harvard  College  were  Unita- 
rian ;  all  the  elite  of  wealth  and  fashion  crowded  Unitarian 
churches;  the  judges  on  the  bench  were  Unitarian,  giving 
decisions  by  which  the  peculiar  features  of  church  organi- 
zation so  carefully  ordered  by  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  had 
been  nullified  and  all  the  power  had  passed  into  the  hands 
of  the  congregation."  2 

The  schism,  with  its  acrimonies  and  heartburnings,  was 
doubtless  in  some  sense  necessary.  And  it  was  attended 
with  some  beneficent  consequences.  It  gave  rise  to  in- 
structive and  illuminating  debate.  And  on  the  part  of  the 
Orthodox  it  occasioned  an  outburst  of  earnest  zeal  which 
in  a  wonderfully  short  time  had  more  than  repaired  their 
loss  in  numbers,  and  had  started  them  on  a  career  of  wide 
beneficence,  with  a  momentum  that  has  been  increasing  to 

1  J.  H.  Allen,  "The  Unitarians,"  p.  194. 

2  "Autobiography  of  L.  Beecher,"  p.  no. 


THE    UNITARIAX  SCHISM.  25  I 

this  day.  But  it  is  not  altogether  useless  to  put  the  ques- 
tion how  much  was  lost  to  both  parties  and  to  the  com- 
mon cause  by  the  separation.  It  is  not  difficult  to  conceive 
that  such  dogged  polemics  as  Nathanael  Emmons  and 
Jedidiah  Morse  might  have  been  none  the  worse  for  being 
held  in  some  sort  of  fellowship,  rather  than  in  exasperated 
controversy,  with  such  types  of  Christian  sainthood  as  the 
younger  Ware  and  the  younger  Buckminster ;  and  it  is  easy 
to  imagine  the  extreme  culture  and  cool  intellectual  and 
spiritual  temper  of  the  Unitarian  pulpit  in  general  as 
finding  its  advantage  in  not  being  cut  off  from  direct  radi- 
ations from  the  fiery  zeal  of  Lyman  Beecher  and  Edward 
Dorr  Griffin.  Is  it  quite  sure  that  New  England  Congre- 
gationalism would  have  been  in  all  respects  worse  off  if 
Channing  and  his  friends  had  continued  to  be  recognized 
as  the  Liberal  wing  of  its  clergy  ?  or  that  the  Unitarian  min- 
isters would  not  have  been  a  great  deal  better  off  if  they 
had  remained  in  connection  with  a  strong  and  conservative 
right  wing,  which  might  counterbalance  the  exorbitant  left- 
ward flights  of  their  more  impatient  and  erratic  spirits? 

The  seating  of  a  pronounced  Unitarian  in  the  HoUis 
chair  of  theology  at  Harvard  took  place  in  1805.  Three 
years  later,  in  1808,  the  doors  of  Andover  Seminary  were 
opened  to  students.  Thirty-six  were  present,  and  the 
number  went  on  increasing.  The  example  was  quickly 
followed.  In  18 10  the  Dutch  seminary  was  begun  at 
New  Brunswick,  and  in  18 12  the  Presbyterian  at  Prince- 
ton. In  18 16  Bangor  Seminary  (Congregationalist)  and 
Hartwick  Seminary  (Lutheran)  were  opened.  In  1819 
the  Episcopalian  "  General  Seminary  "  followed,  and  the 
Baptist  "  Hamilton  Seminary  "  in  1820.  In  1821  Presby- 
terian seminaries  were  begun  at  Auburn,  N.  Y.,  and 
Marysville,  Tenn.  In  1822  the  Yale  Divinity  College 
was  founded  (CongregationaUst) ;   in   1823   the  Virginia 


252  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xv. 

(Episcopalian)  seminary  at  Alexandria;  in  1824  the  Union 
(Presbyterian)  Seminary,  also  in  Virginia,  and  the  Unita- 
rian seminary  at  Cambridge;  in  1825  the  Baptist  semi- 
nary at  Newton,  Mass.,  and  the  German  Reformed  at 
York,  Pa.  ;  in  1826  the  Lutheran  at  Gettysburg;  in  1827 
the  Baptist  at  Rock  Spring,  111.  Thus,  within  a  period  of 
twenty  years,  seventeen  theological  schools  had  come  into 
existence  where  none  had  been  known  before.  It  was  a 
swift  and  beneficent  revolution,  and  the  revolution  has 
never  gone  backward.  In  1880  were  enumerated  in  the 
United  States  no  less  than  one  hundred  and  forty-two 
seminaries,  representing  all  sects,  orders,  and  schools  of 
theological  opinion,  employing  five  hundred  and  twenty- 
nine  resident  professors.' 

To  Andover,  in  the  very  first  years  of  its  great  history, 
came  Mills  and  others  of  the  little  Williams  College  circle ; 
and  at  once  their  infectious  enthusiasm  for  the  advance- 
ment of  the  kingdom  of  God  was  felt  throughout  the  in- 
stitution. The  eager  zeal  of  these  young  men  brooked  no 
delay.  In  June,  18 10,  the  General  Association  of  Massa- 
chusetts met  at  the  neighboring  town  of  Bradford ;  there 
four  of  the  students,  Judson,  Nott,  Newell,  and  Hall,  pre- 
sented themselves  and  their  cause ;  and  at  that  meeting 
was  constituted  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners 
for  Foreign  Missions.  The  little  faith  of  the  churches 
shrank  from  the  responsibility  of  sustaining  missionaries  in 
the  field,  and  Judson  was  sent  to  England  to  solicit  the 
cooperation  of  the  London  Missionary  Society.  This 
effort  happily  failing,  the  burden  came  back  upon  the 
American  churches  and  was  not  refused.  At  last,  in 
February,  1 8 1 2,  the  first  American  missionaries  to  a  foreign 
country,  Messrs.  Judson,  Rice,  Newell,  Nott,  and  Hall, 
with  their  wives,  sailed,  in  two  parties,  for  Calcutta. 
1  "  Herzog-Schaff  Encyclopedia,"  pp.  2328-2331. 


BAPTIST  FOREIGN  MISSIONS.  253 

And  now  befell  an  incident  perplexing,  embarrassing, 
and  disheartening  to  the  supporters  of  the  mission,  but 
attended  with  results  for  the  promotion  of  the  gospel 
to  which  their  best  wisdom  never  could  have  attained. 
Adoniram  Judson,  a  graduate  of  Brown  University, 
having  spent  the  long  months  at  sea  in  the  diligent  and 
devout  study  of  the  Scriptures,  arrived  at  Calcutta  fully 
persuaded  of  the  truth  of  Baptist  principles.  His  friend, 
Luther  Rice,  arriving  by  the  other  vessel,  came  by  and  by 
to  the  same  conclusion ;  and  the  two,  with  their  wives, 
were  baptized  by  immersion  in  the  Baptist  church  at  Cal- 
cutta. The  announcement  of  this  news  in  America  was  an 
irresistible  appeal  to  the  already  powerful  and  rapidly 
growing  Baptist  denomination  to  assume  the  support  of 
the  two  missionaries  who  now  offered  themselves  to  the 
service  of  the  Baptist  churches.  Rice  returned  to  urge  the 
appeal  on  their  immediate  attention,  while  Judson  remained 
to  enter  on  that  noble  apostolate  for  which  his  praise  is  in 
all  the  churches. 

To  the  widespread  Baptist  fellowship  this  sudden,  un- 
mistakable, and  imperative  providential  summons  to  en- 
gage in  the  work  of  foreign  missions  was  (it  is  hardly  too 
much  to  say)  like  life  from  the  dead.  The  sect  had 
doubled  its  numbers  in  the  decade  just  passed,  and  was 
estimated  to  include  two  hundred  thousand  communicants, 
all  "  baptized  believers."  But  this  multitude  was  without 
common  organization,  and,  while  abundantly  endowed 
with  sectarian  animosities,  was  singularly  lacking  in  a 
consciousness  of  common  spiritual  life.  It  was  pervaded 
by  a  deadly  fatalism,  which,  under  the  guise  of  reverence 
for  the  will  of  God,  was  openly  pleaded  as  a  reason  for 
abstaining  from  effort  and  self-denial  in  the  promotion  of 
the  gospel.  Withal  it  was  widely  characterized  not  only 
by  a  lack  of  education  in  its  ministry,  but  by  a  violent  and 


254  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xv. 

brutal  opposition  to  a  learned  clergy,  which  was  particu- 
larly strange  in  a  party  the  moiety  of  whose  principles 
depends  on  a  point  in  Greek  lexicology.  It  was  to  a 
party — we  may  not  say  a  body — deeply  and  widely 
affected  by  traits  like  these  that  the  divine  call  was  to  be 
presented  and  urged.  The  messenger  was  well  fitted  for 
his  work.  To  the  zeal  of  a  new  convert  to  Baptist  princi- 
ples, and  a  missionary  fervor  deepened  by  recent  contact 
with  idolatry  in  some  of  its  most  repulsive  forms,  Luther 
Rice  united  a  cultivated  eloquence  and  a  personal  per- 
suasiveness. Of  course  his  first  address  was  to  pastors 
and  congregations  in  the  seaboard  cities,  unexcelled  by 
any,  of  whatever  name,  for  intelligent  and  reasonable 
piety;  and  here  his  task  was  easy  and  brief,  for  they  were 
already  of  his  mind.  But  the  great  mass  of  ignorance  and 
prejudice  had  also  to  be  reckoned  with.  By  a  work  in 
which  the  influence  of  the  divine  Spirit  was  quite  as  mani- 
fest as  in  the  convulsive  agitations  of  a  camp-meeting,  it 
was  dealt  with  successfully.  Church  history  moved  swiftly 
in  those  days.  The  news  of  the  accession  of  Judson  and 
Rice  was  received  in  January,  1813.  In  May,  18 14,  the 
General  Missionary  Convention  of  the  Baptists  was  organ- 
ized at  Philadelphia,  thirty-three  delegates  being  present, 
from  eleven  different  States.  The  Convention,  which  was 
to  meet  triennially,  entered  at  once  upon  its  work.  It 
became  a  vital  center  to  the  Baptist  denomination.  From 
it,  at  its  second  meeting,  proceeded  effective  measures  for 
the  promotion  of  education  in  the  ministry,  and,  under 
the  conviction  that  "  western  as  well  as  eastern  regions  are 
given  to  the  Son  of  God  as  an  inheritance,"  large  plans 
for  home  missions  at  the  West. 

Thus  the  great  debt  which  the  English  Congregational- 
ists  had  owed  to  the  Baptists  for  heroic  leadership  in  the 
work  of  foreign  missions  was  repaid  with  generous  usury 


MANY  MISSIOX  BOARDS. 


255 


by  the  Congregationalists  to  the  Baptists  of  America. 
From  this  time  forward  the  American  Baptists  came  more 
and  more  to  be  felt  as  a  salutary  force  in  the  religious  life 
of  the  nation  and  the  world.  But  against  what  bitter  and 
furious  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  ancient  ignorance  the 
new  light  had  to  struggle  cannot  easily  be  conceived  by 
those  who  have  only  heard  of  the  "  Hard-Shell  Baptist  "  as 
a  curious  fossil  of  a  prehistoric  period. ^ 

The  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign 
Missions  continued  for  twenty-seven  years  to  be  the  com- 
mon organ  of  foreign  missionary  operations  for  the  Con- 
gregationalists, the  Presbyterians,  and  the  Dutch  and 
German  Reformed  churches.  In  the  year  1837  an  ofti- 
cial  Presbyterian  Board  of  Missions  was  erected  by  the 
Old-School  fragment  of  the  disrupted  Presbyterian  Church  ; 
and  to  this,  when  the  two  fragments  were  reunited,  in 
1869,  the  contributions  of  the  New-School  side  began  to 
be  transferred.  In  1858  the  Dutch  church,  and  in  1879 
the  German  church,  instituted  their  separate  mission 
operations.  Thus  the  initiative  of  the  Andover  .students 
in  1 8 10  resulted  in  the  erection,  not  of  one  mission  board, 
timidly  venturing  to  set  five  missionaries  in  the  foreign 
field,  but  of  five  boards,  whose  total  annual  resources  are 
counted  by  millions  of  dollars,  whose  evangelists,  men  and 
women,  American  and  foreign-born,  are  a  great  army, 
and  whose  churches,  schools,  colleges,  theological  semi- 
naries, hospitals,  printing-presses,  with  the  other  equip- 
ments of  a  Christian  civilization,  and  the  myriads  of  whose 
faithful  Christian  converts,  in  every  country  under  the 
whole  heaven,  have  done  more  for  the  true  honor  of  our 
nation  than  all  that  it  has  achieved  in  diplomacy  and  war.'- 

1  "The  Baptists,"  by  Dr.  A.  H.  Newman,  pp.  379-442. 
*  I  have  omitted  from  this  list  of  results  in  the  direct  line  from  the  incep- 
tion at  Andover,  in  1810,  the  American  Missionary  Association.     It  owed 


256  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xv. 

The  Episcopalians  entered  on  foreign  mission  work  in 
1 8 19,  and  the  Methodists,  tardily  but  at  last  with  signal 
efficiency  and  success,  in  1832.  No  considerable  sect  of 
American  Christians  at  the  present  day  is  unrepresented 
in  the  foreign  field. 

In  order  to  complete  the  history  of  this  organizing  era 
in  the  church,  we  must  return  to  the  humble  but  memo- 
rable figure  of  Samuel  J.  Mills.  It  was  his  characteristic 
word  to  one  of  his  fellows,  as  they  stood  ready  to  leave 
the  seclusion  of  the  seminary  for  active  service,  "  You 
and  I,  brother,  are  little  men,  but  before  we  die,  our  influ- 
ence must  be  felt  on  the  other  side  of  the  world."  No 
one  claimed  that  he  was  other  than  a  "  little  man,"  except 
as  he  was  filled  and  possessed  with  a  great  thought,  and 
that  the  thought  that  filled  the  mind  of  Christ — the 
thought  of  the  Coming  Age  and  of  the  Reign  of  God  on 
earth.^  While  his  five  companions  were  sailing  for  the 
remotest  East,  Mills  plunged  into  the  depth  of  the  western 
wilderness,  and  between  18 12  and  1815,  in  two  toilsome 
journeys,  traversed  the  Great  Valley  as  far  as  New  Orleans, 
deeply  impressed  everywhere  with  the  famine  of  the  word, 
and  laboring,  in  cooperation  with  local  societies  at  the  East, 
to  provide  for  the  universal  want  by  the  sale  or  gift  of 
Bibles  and  the  organization  of  Bible  societies.  After  his 
second  return  he  proposed  the  organization  of  the  Ameri- 
can Bible  Society,  which  was  accomplished  in  18 16. 

But  already  this  nobly  enterprising  mind  was  intent  on 

its'origin,  in  1846,  to  the  dissatisfaction  felt  by  a  considerable  number  of  the 
supporters  of  the  American  Board  with  the  attitude  of  that  institution  on 
some  of  the  questions  arising  incidentally  to  the  antislavery  discussion.  Its 
foreign  missions,  never  extensive,  were  transferred  to  other  hands,  at  the 
close  of  the  Civil  War,  that  it  might  devote  itself  wholly  to  its  great  and  suc- 
cessful work  among  "  the  oppressed  races  "  at  home. 

1  It  may  be  worth  considering  how  far  the  course  of  religious  and  theo- 
logical thought  would  have  been  modified  if  the  English  New  Testament  had 
used  these  phrases  instead  of  World  to  Come  and  Kingdom  of  God. 


AFRICAN  EVANGELIZATION.  257 

a  new  plan,  of  most  far-reaching  importance,  not  original 
with  himself,  but,  on  the  contrary,  long  familiar  to  those 
who  studied  the  extension  of  the  church  and  pondered 
the  indications  of  God's  providential  purposes.  The  earh- 
est  attempt  in  America  toward  the  propagation  of  the 
gospel  in  foreign  lands  would  seem  to  have  been  the  cir- 
cular letter  sent  out  by  the  neighbor  pastors,  Samuel 
Hopkins  and  Ezra  Stiles,  in  the  year  1773,  from  Newport, 
chief  seat  of  the  slave-trade,  asking  contributions  for  the 
education  of  two  colored  men  as  missionaries  to  their  native 
continent  of  Africa.  To  many  generous  minds  at  once,  in 
this  era  of  great  Christian  enterprises,  the  thought  recurred 
of  vast  blessings  to  be  wrought  for  the  Dark  Continent  by 
the  agency  of  colored  men  Christianized,  civilized,  and 
educated  in  America.  Good  men  reverently  hoped  to 
see  in  this  a  triumphant  solution  of  the  mystery  of  divine 
providence  in  permitting  the  curse  of  African  slavery, 
through  the  cruel  greed  of  men,  to  be  inflicted  on  the 
American  republic.  In  18 16  Mills  successfully  pressed 
upon  the  Presbyterian  "  Synod  of  New  York  and  New 
Jersey"  a  plan  for  educating  Christian  men  of  color  for 
the  work  of  the  gospel  in  their  fatherland.  That  same 
year,  in  cooperation  with  an  earnest  philanthropist,  Dr. 
Robert  Finley,  of  New  Jersey,  he  aided  in  the  instituting 
of  the  American  Colonization  Society.  In  181  7  he  sailed, 
in  company  with  a  colleague,  the  Rev.  Ebenezer  Burgess, 
to  explore  the  coast  of  Africa  in  search  of  the  best  site 
for  a  colony.  On  the  return  voyage  he  died,  and  his  body 
was  committed  to  the  sea:  a  "little  man,"  to  whom  were 
granted  only  five  years  of  what  men  call  "active  life"; 
but  he  had  fulfilled  his  vow,  and  the  ends  of  the  earth  had 
felt  his  influence  for  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  The  enterprise  of  African  coloni- 
zation, already  dear  to  Christian  hearts  for  the  hopes  that 


258  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xv. 

it  involved  of  the  redemption  of  a  lost  continent,  of  the 
elevation  of  an  oppressed  race  in  America,  of  the  emanci- 
pation of  slaves  and  the  abolition  of  slavery,  received  a 
new  consecration  as  the  object  of  the  dying  labors  and 
prayers  of  Mills.  It  was  associated,  in  the  minds  of  good 
men,  not  only  with  plans  for  the  conversion  of  the  heathen, 
and  with  the  tide  of  antislavery  sentiment  now  spreading 
and  deepening  both  at  the  South  and  at  the  North,  but 
also  with  "  Clarkson  societies  "  and  other  local  organiza- 
tions, in  many  different  places,  for  the  moral  and  physical 
elevation  of  the  free  colored  people  from  the  pitiable 
degradation  in  which  they  were  commonly  living  in  the 
larger  towns.  Altogether  the  watchmen  on  the  walls  of 
Zion  saw  no  fairer  sign  of  dawn,  in  that  second  decade  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  than  the  hopeful  lifting  of  the 
cloud  from  Africa,  the  brightening  prospects  of  the  free 
negroes  of  the  United  States,  and  the  growing  hope  of  the 
abolition  of  American  slavery.^ 

Other  societies,  national  in  their  scope  and  constituency, 
the  origin  of  which  belongs  in  this  organizing  period,  are 
the  American  Education  Society  (18 15),  the  American 
Sunday-school  Union  (1824),  the  American  Tract  Society 
(1825),  the  Seamen's  Friend  Society  (1826),  and  the 
American  Home  Missionary  Society  (1826),  in  which  last 
the  Congregationalists  of  New  England  cooperated  with 
the  Presbyterians  on  the  basis  of  a  Plan  of  Union  entered 
into  between  the  General  Assembly  and  the  General  As- 
sociation of  Connecticut,  the  tendency  of  which  was  to 
reinforce  the  Presbyterian  Church  with  the  numbers  and 

1  The  colored  Baptists  of  Richmond  entered  eagerly  into  the  Colonization 
project,  and  in  1822  their  "  African  Missionary  Society"  sent  out  its  mission 
to  the  young  colony  of  Liberia.  One  of  their  missionaries  was  the  Rev. 
Lott  Cary,  the  dignity  of  whose  character  and  career  was  an  encouragement 
of  his  people  in  their  highest  aspirations,  and  a  confirmation  of  the  hopes  of 
their  friends  (Newman,  "The  Baptists,"  p.  402;  Gurley,  "Life  of  Ash- 
mun,"  pp.  147-160). 


DEMOCRACY  IN  BENEFICENCE.  259 

the  vigor  of  the  New  England  westward  migration.  Of 
course  the  establishment  of  these  and  other  societies  for 
beneficent  work  outside  of  sectarian  lines  did  not  hinder, 
but  rather  stimulated,  sectarian  organizations  for  the  like 
objects.  The  whole  American  church,  in  all  its  orders,  was 
girding  itself  for  a  work,  at  home  and  abroad,  the  immense 
grandeur  of  which  no  man  of  that  generation  could  pos- 
sibly have  foreseen. 

The  grandeur  of  this  work  was  to  consist  not  only  in 
the  results  of  it,  but  in  the  resources  of  it.  As  never 
before,  the  sympathies,  prayers,  and  personal  cooperation 
of  all  Christians,  even  the  feeblest,  were  to  be  combined 
and  utilized  for  enterprises  coextensive  with  the  continent 
and  the  world  and  taking  hold  on  eternity.  The  possi- 
bilities of  the  new  era  were  dazzHng  to  the  prophetic 
imagination.  A  young  minister  then  standing  on  the 
threshold  of  a  long  career  exulted  in  the  peculiar  and  ex- 
celling glory  of  the  dawning  day  : 

"  Surely,  if  it  is  the  noblest  attribute  of  our  nature  that 
spreads  out  the  circle  of  our  sympathies  to  include  the 
whole  family  of  man.  and  sends  forth  our  affections  to 
embrace  the  ages  of  a  distant  futurity,  it  must  be  regarded 
as  a  privilege  no  less  exalted  that  our  means  of  doing  good 
are  limited  by  no  remoteness  of  country  or  distance  of 
duration,  but  we  may  operate,  if  we  will,  to  assuage  the 
miseries  of  another  hemisphere,  or  to  prevent  the  necessi- 
ties of  an  unborn  generation.  The  time  has  been  when  a 
man  might  weep  over  the  wrongs  of  Africa,  and  he  might 
look  forward  to  weep  over  the  hopelessness  of  her  degra- 
dation, till  his  heart  should  bleed  ;  and  yet  his  tears  would 
be  all  that  he  could  give  her.  He  might  relieve  the  beg- 
gar at  his  door,  but  he  could  do  nothing  for  a  dying  con- 
tinent. He  might  provide  for  his  children,  but  he  could 
do  nothing  for  the  nations  that  were  yet  to  be  born  to  an 
inheritance  of  utter  wretchedness.     Then  the  privilege  of 


266  AMERICA JV  CHRISTIANITV.  [Chap.  xv. 

engaging  in  schemes  of  magnificent  benevolence  belonged 
only  to  princes  and  to  men  of  princely  possessions;  but 
now  the  progress  of  improvement  has  brought  down  this 
privilege  to  the  reach  of  every  individual.  The  institutions 
of  our  age  are  a  republic  of  benevolence,  and  all  may 
share  in  the  unrestrained  and  equal  democracy.  This 
privilege  is  ours.  We  may  stretch  forth  our  hand,  if  we 
will,  to  enlighten  the  Hindu  or  to  tame  the  savage  of  the 
wilderness.  It  is  ours,  if  we  will,  to  put  forth  our  contri- 
butions and  thus  to  operate  not  ineflfectually  for  the  relief 
and  renovation  of  a  continent  over  which  one  tide  of  mis- 
ery has  swept  without  ebb  and  without  restraint  for  unre- 
membered  centuries.  It  is  ours,  if  we  will,  to  do  something 
that  shall  tell  on  all  the  coming  ages  of  a  race  which  has 
been  persecuted  and  enslaved,  trodden  down  and  despised, 
for  a  thousand  generations.  Our  Father  has  made  us  the 
almoners  of  his  love.  He  has  raised  us  to  partake,  as  it 
were,  in  the  ubiquity  of  his  own  beneficence.  Shall  we 
be  unworthy  of  the  trust?     God  forbid!"^ 

1  Leonard  Bacon,  "  A  Plea  for  Africa,"  in  the  Park  Street  Church,  Boston, 
July  4,  1824. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

CONFLICTS    OF    THE  CHURCH   WITH   PUBLIC    WRONGS. 

The  transition  from  establishment  to  the  voluntary- 
system  for  the  support  of  churches  was  made  not  without 
some  difficulty,  but  with  surprisingly  little.  In  the  South 
the  established  churches  were  practically  dead  before  the 
laws  establishing  them  were  repealed  and  the  endowments 
disposed  of.  In  New  York  the  Episcopalian  churches 
were  indeed  depressed  and  discouraged  by  the  ceasing  of 
State  support  and  official  patronage;  and  inasmuch  as 
these,  with  the  subsidies  of  the  "  S.  P.  G.,"  had  been  their 
main  reliance,  it  was  inevitable  that  they  should  pass  through 
a  period  of  prostration  until  the  appreciation  of  their  large 
endowments,  and  the  progress  of  immigration  and  of  con- 
version from  other  sects,  and  especially  the  awakening  of 
religious  earnestness  and  of  sectarian  ambition. 

In  New  England  the  transition  to  the  voluntary  system 
was  more  gradual.  Not  till  1818  in  Connecticut,  and  in 
Massachusetts  not  till  1834,  was  the  last  strand  of  connec- 
tion severed  between  the  churches  of  the  standing  order 
and  the  state,  and  the  churches  left  solely  to  their  own 
resources.  The  exaltation  and  divine  inspiration  that  had 
come  to  these  churches  with  the  revivals  which  from  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  never  for  a  long  time 
intermitted,  and  the  example  of  the  dissenting  congrega- 
a6i 


262  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xvi. 

tions,  Baptist,  Episcopalian,  and  Methodist,  successfully 
self-supported  among  them,  made  it  easy  for  them,  not- 
withstanding the  misgivings  of  many  good  men,  not  only 
to  assume  the  entire  burden  of  their  own  expenses,  but 
with  this  to  undertake  and  carry  forward  great  and  costly 
enterprises  of  charity  reaching  to  the  bounds  of  the  coun- 
try and  of  the  inhabited  earth.  It  is  idle  to  claim  that  the 
American  system  is  at  no  disadvantage  in  comparison  with 
that  which  elsewhere  prevails  almost  throughout  Christen- 
dom ;  but  it  may  be  safely  asserted  that  the  danger  that 
has  been  most  emphasized  as  a  warning  against  the  volun- 
tary system  has  not  attended  this  system  in  America.  The 
fear  that  a  clergy  supported  by  the  free  gifts  of  the  people 
would  prove  subservient  and  truckling  to  the  hand  by 
which  it  is  fed  has  been  proved  groundless.  Of  course 
there  have  been  time-servers  in  the  American  ministry,  as 
in  every  other;  but  flagrant  instances  of  the  abasement  of 
a  whole  body  of  clergy  before  the  power  that  holds  the 
purse  and  controls  promotion  are  to  be  sought  in  the  old 
countries  rather  than  the  new.  Even  selfish  motives  would 
operate  against  this  temptation,  since  it  has  often  been 
demonstrated  that  the  people  will  not  sustain  a  ministry 
which  it  suspects  of  the  vice  of  subserviency.  The  annals 
of  no  established  church  can  show  such  unsparing  fidelity 
of  the  ministry  in  rebuking  the  sins  of  people  and  of  rulers 
in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  as  that  which  has  been,  on  the 
whole,  characteristic  of  the  Christian  ministers  of  the 
United  States. 

Among  the  conflicts  of  the  American  church  with  pub- 
lic wrongs  strongly  intrenched  in  law  or  social  usage,  two 
are  of  such  magnitude  and  protracted  through  so  long  a 
period  as  to  demand  special  consideration — the  conflict 
with  drunkenness  and  the  conflict  with  slavery.  Some 
less  conspicuous  illustrations  of  the  fidelity  of  the  church 


THE    CHL'KCn  AGAINST  DUELING.  263 

in  the  case  of  public  and  popular  sins  may  be  more  briefly 
referred  to. 

The  death  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  in  July,  1804,  in  a 
duel  with  Aaron  Burr,  occasioned  a  wide  and  violent  out- 
burst of  indignation  against  the  murderer,  now  a  fugitive 
and  outcast,  for  the  dastardly  malignity  of  the  details  of 
his  crime,  and  for  the  dignity,  and  generosity  as  well  as  the 
pubhc  worth  of  his  victim.  This  was  the  sort  of  explosion 
of  excited  public  feeling  which  often  loses  itself  in  the  air. 
It  was  a  difl'erent  matter  when  the  churches  and  ministers 
of  Christ  took  up  the  afTair  in  the  light  of  the  law  of  God, 
and,  dealing  not  with  the  circumstances  but  with  the 
essence  of  it,  pressed  it  inexorably  on  the  conscience  of  tlie 
people.  Some  of  the  most  memorable  words  in  American 
literature  were  uttered  on  this  occasion,  notwithstanding 
that  there  were  few  congregations  in  which  there  were  not 
sore  consciences  to  be  irritated  or  political  anxieties  to  be 
set  quaking  by  them.  The  names  of  Eliphalet  Nott  and 
John  M.  Mason  were  honorably  conspicuous  in  this  work. 
But  one  unknown  young  man  of  thirty,  in  a  corner  of  Long 
Island,  uttered  words  in  his  little  country  meeting-house 
that  pricked  the  conscience  of  the  nation.  The  words  of 
Lyman  Beecher  on  this  theme  may  well  be  quoted  as 
being  a  part  of  history,  for  the  consequences  that  followed 
them. 

"  Dueling  is  a  great  national  sin.  With  the  exception 
of  a  small  section  of  the  Union,  the  whole  land  is  defiled 
with  blood.  From  the  lakes  of  the  North  to  the  plains  of 
Georgia  is  heard  the  voice  of  lamentation  and  woe — the 
cries  of  the  widow  and  fatherless.  This  work  of  desolation 
is  performed  often  by  men  in  office,  by  the  appointed 
guardians  of  life  and  liberty.  On  the  floor  of  Congress 
challenges  have  been  threatened,  if  not  given,  and  thus 
powder  and  ball  have  been  introduced  as  the  auxiliaries  of 


264  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.. XVI. 

deliberation  and  argument.  .  .  .  We  are  murderers — a 
nation  of  murderers — while  we  tolerate  and  reward  the 
perpetrators  of  the  crime." 

Words  such  as  these  resounding  from  pulpit  after  pulpit, 
multiplied  and  disseminated  by  means  of  the  press,  acted 
on  by  representative  bodies  of  churches,  becoming  em- 
bodied in  anti-dueUng  societies,  exorcised  the  foul  spirit 
from  the  land.  The  criminal  folly  of  dueling  did  not,  in- 
deed, at  once  and  altogether  cease.  Instances  of  it  con- 
tinue to  be  heard  of  to  this  day.  But  the  conscience  of 
the  nation  was  instructed,  and  a  warning  was  served  upon 
political  parties  to  beware  of  proposing  for  national  honors 
men  whose  hands  were  defiled  with  blood. i 

Another  instance  of  the  fidehty  of  the  church  in  resist- 
ance to  public  wrong  was  its  action  in  the  matter  of  the 
dealing  of  the  State  of  Georgia  and  the  national  govern- 
ment toward  the  Georgia  Indians.  This  is  no  place  for  the 
details  of  the  shameful  story  of  perfidy  and  oppression. 
It  is  well  told  by  Helen  Hunt  Jackson  in  the  melancholy 
pages  of  "  A  Century  of  Dishonor."  The  wrongs  inflicted 
on  the  Cherokee  nation  were  deepened  by  every  conceiv- 
able aggravation. 

"  In  the  whole  history  of  our  government's  dealings 
with  the  Indian  tribes  there  is  no  record  so  black  as  the 
record  of  its  perfidy  to  this  nation.     There  will  come  a 

1  "  An  impression  was  made  that  never  ceased.  It  started  a  series  of 
efforts  that  have  affected  the  whole  northern  mind  at  least ;  and  in  Jackson's 
time  the  matter  came  up  in  Congress,  and  a  law  was  passed  disfranchising  a 
duelist.  And  that  was  not  the  last  of  it ;  for  when  Henry  Clay  was  up  for 
the  Presidency  the  Democrats  printed  an  edition  of  forty  thousand  of  that  ser- 
mon and  scattered  them  all  over  the  North  "  ("  Autobiography  of  Lyman 
Beecher,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  153,  154;  with  foot-note  from  Dr.  L.  Bacon :  "  That  ser- 
mon has  never  ceased  to  be  a  power  in  the  politics  of  this  country.  More  than 
anything  else,  it  made  the  name  of  brave  old  Andrew  Jackson  "distasteful  to 
the  moral  and  religious  feeling  of  the  people.  It  hung  like  a  millstone  on 
the  neck  of  Henry  Clay  "), 


THE    GEORGIA    OUTRAGE.  265 

time  in  the  remote  future  when  to  the  student  of  American 
history  it  will  seem  well-nigh  incredible.  From  the  be- 
ginning of  the  century  they  had  been  steadily  advancing- 
in  civilization.  As  far  back  as  1800  they  had  begun  the 
manufacture  of  cotton  cloth,  and  in  1820  there  was  scarcely 
a  family  in  that  part  of  the  nation  living  east  of  the 
Mississippi  but  what  understood  the  use  of  the  card  and 
spinning-wheel.  Every  family  had  its  farm  under  cultiva- 
tion. The  territory  was  laid  off  into  districts,  with  a 
council-house,  a  judge,  and  a  marshal  in  each  district.  A 
national  committee  and  council  were  the  supreme  author- 
ity in  the  nation.  Schools  were  flourishing  in  all  the 
villages.  Printing-presses  were  at  work.  .  .  .  They  were 
enthusiastic  in  their  efforts  to  establish  and  perfect  their 
own  system  of  jurisprudence.  Missions  of  several  sects 
were  established  in  their  country,  and  a  large  number  of 
them  had  professed  Christianity  and  were  leading  exem- 
plary lives.  There  is  no  instance  in  all  history  of  a  race 
of  people  passing  in  so  short  a  space  of  time  from  the  bar- 
barous stage  to  the  agricultural  and  civilized."  ^ 

We  do  well  to  give  authentic  details  of  the  condition  of 
the  Cherokee  nation  in  the  early  part  of  the  century,  for 
the  advanced  happy  and  peaceful  civilization  of  this  people 
was  one  of.  the  fairest  fruits  of  American  Christianity 
working  upon  exceptionally  noble  race-qualities  in  the 
recipients  of  it.  An  agent  of  the  War  Department  in 
1825  made  official  report  to  the  Department  on  the  rare 
beauty  of  the  Cherokee  country,  secured  to  them  by  the 
most  sacred  pledges  with  which  it  was  possible  for  the 
national  government  to  bind  itself,  and  covered  by  the 
inhabitants,  through  their  industry  and  thrift,  with  flocks 
and  herds,  with  farms  and  villages ;  and  goes  on  to  speak 
of  the  Indians  themselves: 

1  "  A  Century  of  Dishonor,"  pp.  270,  271. 


266  AMERICAN  CHRISTIAXITY.  [Chap,  xvi. 

"  The  natives  carry  on  considerable  trade  with  the  ad- 
joining States ;  some  of  them  export  cotton  in  boats  down 
the  Tennessee  to  the  Mississippi,  and  down  that  river  to 
New  Orleans.  Apple  and  peach  orchards  are  quite  com- 
mon, and  gardens  are  cultivated  and  much  attention  paid 
to  them.  Butter  and  cheese  are  seen  on  Cherokee  tables. 
There  are  many  public  roads  in  the  nation,  and  houses 
of  entertainment  kept  by  natives.  Numerous  and  flourish- 
ing villages  are  seen  in  every  section  of  the  country. 
Cotton  and  woolen  cloths  are  manufactured ;  blankets  of 
various  dimensions,  manufactured  by  Cherokee  hands,  are 
very  common.  Almost  every  family  in  the  nation  grows 
cotton  for  its  own  consumption.  Industry  arn^  commercial 
enterprise  are  extending  themselves  in  every  part.  Nearly 
all  the  merchants  in  the  nation  are  native  Cherokees. 
Agricultural  pursuits  engage  the  chief  attention  of  the 
people.  Different  branches  in  mechanics  are  pursued. 
The  population  is  rapidly  increasing.  .  .  .  The  Christian 
religion  is  the  religion  of  the  nation.  Presbyterians,  Metho- 
dists, Baptists,  and  Moravians  are  the  most  numerous  sects. 
Some  of  the  most  influential  characters  are  members  of  the 
church  and  live  consistently  with  their  professions.  The 
whole  nation  is  penetrated  with  gratitude  for  the  aid  it  has 
received  from  the  United  States  government  and  from 
different  religious  societies.  Schools  are  increasing  every 
year;  learning  is  encouraged  and  rewarded;  the  young 
class  acquire  the  English  and  those  of  mature  age  the 
Cherokee  system  of  learning."  ^ 

This  country,  enriched  by  the  toil  and  thrift  of  its  own- 
ers, the  State  of  Georgia  resolved  not  merely  to  subjugate 
to  its  jurisdiction,  but  to  steal  from  its  rightful  and  lawful 
owners,  driving  them  away  as  outlaws.  As  a  sure  expedi- 
ent for  securing  popular  consent  to  the  intended  infamy, 
the  farms  of  the  Cherokees  were  parceled  out  to  be  drawn 

1  "  A  Century  of  Dishonor,"  pp.  275,  276. 


rilL    ClICKCH  IKOTESTS.  267 

for  ill  a  lottery,  and  the  lottery  tickets  distributed  among 
the  white  voters.  Thus  fortified,  the  brave  State  of 
Georgia  went  to  all  lengths  of  outrage.  "  Missionaries 
were  arrested  and  sent  to  prison  for  preaching  to  Chcro- 
kees;  Cherokees  were  sentenced  to  death  by  Georgia 
courts  and  hung  by  Georgia  executioners."  But  the  great 
crime  could  not  be  achieved  vathout  the  connivance,  and 
at  last  the  active  consent,  of  the  national  government. 
Should  this  consent  be  given?  Never  in  American  his- 
tory has  the  issue  been  more  squarely  drawn  between  the 
kingdom  of  Satan  and  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  American 
Christianity  was  most  conspicuously  represented  in  this 
conflict  by  an  eminent  layman,  Jeremiah  Evarts,  whose 
fame  for  this  public  service,  and  not  for  this  alone,  will  in 
the  lapse  of  time  outshine  even  that  of  his  illustrious  son. 
In  a  series  of  articles  in  the  "  National  Intelligencer,"  under 
the  signature  of  "  William  Penn,"  he  cited  the  sixteen 
treaties  in  which  the  nation  had  pledged  its  faith  to  defend 
the  Cherokees  in  the  possession  of  their  lands,  and  set  the 
whole  case  before  the  people  as  well  as  the  government. 
But  his  voice  was  not  solitary.  From  press  and  pulpit  and 
from  the  platforms  of  public  meetings  all  over  the  country 
came  petitions,  remonstrances,  and  indignant  protests,  re- 
inforcing the  pathetic  entreaties  of  the  Cherokees  them- 
selves to  be  protected  from  the  cruelty  that  threatened  to 
tear  them  from  their  homes.  In  Congress  the  honor  of 
leadership  among  many  faithful  and  able  advocates  of  right 
and  justice  was  conceded  to  Theodore  Frelinghuysen,  then 
in  the  prime  of  a  great  career  of  Christian  service.  By  the 
majority  of  one  vote  the  bill  for  the  removal  of  the  Chero- 
kees passed  the  United  States  Senate.  The  gates  of  hell 
triumphed  for  a  time  with  a  fatal  exultation.  The  authors 
and  abettors  of  the  great  crime  were  confirmed  in  their  de- 
lusion that  threats  of  disunion  and  rebellion  could  be  relied 


268  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvi. 

on  to  carry  any  desired  point.  But  the  mills  of  God  went 
on  grinding.  Thirty  years  later,  when  in  the  battle  of 
Missionary  Ridge  the  chivalry  of  Georgia  went  down  be- 
fore the  army  that  represented  justice  and  freedom  and  the 
authority  of  national  law,  the  vanquished  and  retreating 
soldiers  of  a  lost  cause  could  not  be  accused  of  superstition 
if  they  remembered  that  the  scene  of  their  humiliating 
defeat  had  received  its  name  from  the  martyrdom  of 
Christian  missionaries  at  the  hands  of  their  fathers. 

In  earlier  pages  we  have  already  traced  the  succession 
of  bold  protests  and  organized  labors  on  the  part  of  church 
and  clergy  against  the  institution  of  slavery.^  If  protest 
and  argument  against  it  seem  to  be  less  frequent  in  the 
early  years  of  the  new  century,  it  is  only  because  debate 
must  needs  languish  when  there  is  no  antagonist.  Slavery 
had  at  that  time  no  defenders  in  the  church.  No  body  of 
men  in  1818  more  unmistakably  represented  the  Christian 
citizenship  of  the  whole  country.  North,  South,  and  West, 
outside  of  New  England,  than  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  then  undivided  Presbyterian  Church.  In  that  year 
the  Assembly  set  forth  a  full  and  unanimous  expression  of 
its  sentiments  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  addressed  "  to  the 
churches  and  people  under  its  care."  This  monumental 
document  is  too  long  to  be  cited  here  in  full.  The  open- 
ing paragraphs  of  it  exhibit  the  universally  accepted  senti- 
ment of  American  Christians  of  that  time: 

"  We  consider  the  voluntary  enslaving  of  one  part  of  the 
human  race  by  another  as  a  gross  violation  of  the  most 
precious  and  sacred  rights  of  human  nature  ;  as  utterly  in- 
consistent with  the  law  of  God,  which  requires  us  to  love 
our  neighbor  as  ourselves ;  and  as  totally  irreconcilable 
1  See  above,  pp.  203-205,  222, 


THE    CHURCH  AND   SLAVERY.  269 

with  the  spirit  and  principles  of  the  gospel  of  Christ, 
which  enjoin  that  '  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that 
men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them.'  Slavery 
creates  a  paradox  in  the  moral  system.  It  exhibits  ra- 
tional, accountable,  and  immortal  beings  in  such  circum- 
stances as  scarcely  to  leave  them  the  power  of  moral  action. 
It  exhibits  them  as  dependent  on  the  will  of  others  whether 
they  shall  receive  religious  instruction  ;  whether  they  shall 
know  and  worship  the  true  God ;  whether  they  shall  enjoy 
the  ordinances  of  the  gospel ;  whether  they  shall  perform 
the  duties  and  cherish  the  endearments  of  husbands  and 
wives,  parents  and  children,  neighbors  and  friends ;  whether 
they  shall  preserve  their  chastity  and  purity  or  regard  the 
dictates  of  justice  and  humanity.  Such  are  some  of  the 
consequences  of  slavery — consequences  not  imaginary,  but 
which  connect  themselves  with  its  very  existence.  The 
evils  to  which  the  slave  is  always  exposed  often  take  place 
in  fact,  and  in  their  worst  degree  and  form ;  and  where  all 
of  them  do  not  take  place,  as  we  rejoice  to  say  that  in 
many  instances,  through  the  influence  of  the  principles  of 
humanity  and  religion  on  the  minds  of  masters,  they  do 
not,  still  the  slave  is  deprived  of  his  natural  right,  degraded 
as  a  human  being,  and  exposed  to  the  danger  of  passing 
into  the  hands  of  a  master  who  may  inflict  upon  him  all 
the  hardships  and  injuries  which  inhumanity  and  avarice 
may  suggest. 

"  From  this  view  of  the  consequences  resulting  from  the 
practice  into  which  Christian  people  have  most  inconsist- 
ently fallen  of  enslaving  a  portion  of  their  brethren  of 
mankind, — for  '  God  hath  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of 
men  to  dwell  on  the  face  of  the  earth,' — it  is  manifestly 
the  duty  of  all  Christians  who  enjoy  the  light  of  the  pres- 
ent day,  when  the  inconsistency  of  slavery  both  with  the 
dictates  of  humanity  and  religion  has  been  demonstrated 
and  is  generally  seen  and  acknowledged,  to  use  their  hon- 
est, earnest,  and  unwearied  endeavors  to  correct  the  errors 
of  former  times,  and  as  speedily  as  possible  to  eflface  this 
blot  on  our  holy  religion  and  to  obtain  the  complete  abo- 


2  70  AM  ERIC  AX  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xm. 

lition  of  slavery  throughout  Christendom,  and  if  possible 
throughout  the  world." 

It  was  not  strange  that  while  sentiments  like  these  pre- 
vailed without  contradiction  in  all  parts  of  the  country, 
while- in  State  after  State  emancipations  were  taking  place 
and  acts  of  abolition  were  passing,  and  even  in  the  States 
most  deeply  involved  in  slavery  "  a  great,  and  the  most 
virtuous,  part  of  the  community  abhorred  slavery  and 
wished  its  extermination,"  ^  there  should  seem  to  be  little 
call  for  debate.  But  that  the  antislavery  spirit  in  the 
churches  was  not  dead  was  demonstrated  with  the  first 
occasion. 

In  the  spring  of  1820,  at  the  close  of  two  years  of  agi- 
tating discussion,  the  new  State  of  Missouri  was  admitted 
to  the  Union  as  a  slave  State,  although  with  the  stipula- 
tion that  the  remaining  territory  of  the  United  States 
north  of  the  parallel  of  latitude  bounding  Missouri  on  the 
south  should  be  consecrated  forever  to  freedom.  The  op- 
position to  this  extension  of  slavery  was  taken  up  by 
American  Christianity  as  its  own  cause.  It  was  the  im- 
pending danger  of  such  an  extension  that  prompted  that 
powerful  and  unanimous  declaration  of  the  Presbyterian 
General  Assembly  in  181 8.  The  arguments  against  the 
Missouri  bill,  whether  in  the  debates  of  Congress  or  in 
countless  memorials  and  resolutions  from  public  meetings 
both  secular  and  religious,  were  arguments  from  justice 
and  duty  and  the  law  of  Christ.  These  were  met  by 
constitutional  objections  and  considerations  of  expediency 
and  convenience,  and  by  threats  of  disunion  and  civil  war. 
The  defense  of  slavery  on  principle  had  not  yet  begun  to 
be  heard,  even  among  pohticians. 

The  successful  extension  of  slavery  beyond  the  Missis- 

1  Deliverance  of  General  Assembly,  1818. 


ANTI SLAVERY  IN  1820.  27  I 

sippi  River  was  disheartening  to  the  friends  of  justice  and 
humanity,  but  only  for  the  moment.  Already,  before  the 
two  years'  conflict  had  been  decided  by  "  the  Mif^sonri 
Compromise,"  a  powerful  series  of  articles  by  that  gr&at 
religious  leader,  Jeremiah  Evarts,  in  the  "  Panoplii^t " 
(Boston,  1820),  rallied  the  forces  of  the  church  to  renew 
the  battle.  The  decade  that  opened  with  that  defeat  is 
distinguished  as  a  period  of  sustained  antislavery  activity 
on  the  part  of  the  united  Christian  citizenship  of  the  na- 
tion in  all  quarters.^  In  New  England  the  focus  of  anti- 
slavery  effort  was  perhaps  the  theological  seminary  at 
Andover.  There  the  leading  question  among  the  stu- 
dents in  their  "  Society  of  Inquiry  concerning  Missions  " 
was  the  question,  what  could  be  done,  and  especially  what 
they  could  do,  for  the  uplifting  of  the  colored  population 
of  the  country,  both  the  enslaved  and  the  free.  Measures 
were  concerted  there  for  the  founding  of  "  an  African  col- 
lege where  youth  were  to  be  educated  on  a  scale  so  liberal 
as  to  place  them  on  a  level  with  other  men";-  and  the 
plan  was  not  forgotten  or  neglected  by  these  }'oung  men 
when  from  year  to  year  they  came  into  places  of  effective 
influence.  With  eminent  fitness  the  Fourth  of  July  was 
taken  as  an  antislavery  holiday,  and  into  various  towns 
within  reach  from  Andover  their  most  effective  speakers 
went  forth  to  give  antislavery  addresses  on  that  day. 
Beginning  with  the  Fourth  of  July,  1823,  the  annual  anti- 
slavery  address  at  Park  Street  Church,  Boston,  before 
several  united  churches  of  that  city,  continued  for  the  rest 

1  The  persistent  attempt  to  represent  this  period  as  one  of  prevailing 
apathy  and  inertia  on  the  subject  of  slavery  is  a  very  flagrant  falsification  of 
history.  And  yet  by  dint  of  sturdy  reiteration  it  has  been  forced  into  such 
currency  as  to  impose  itself  even  on  so  careful  a  writer  as  Mr.  Schouler,  in 
his  "  History  of  the  United  States."  It  is  impossible  to  read  this  part  of 
American  church  history  intelligently,  unless  the  mind  is  disabused  of  this 
misrepresentation. 

-  "Christian  Spectator"  (monthly),  New  Haven,  1.S2?),  p.  4. 


272  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvi. 

of  that  decade  at  least  to  be  an  occasion  for  earnest  ap- 
peal and  practical  effort  in  behalf  of  the  oppressed. 
Neither  was  the  work  of  the  young  men  circumscribed  by 
narrow  local  boundaries.  The  report  of  their  committee, 
in  the  year  1823,  on  "The  Condition  of  the  Black  Popu- 
lation of  the  United  States,"  could  hardly  be  characterized 
as  timid  in  its  utterances  on  the  moral  character  of  Ameri- 
can slavery.  A  few  lines  will  indicate  the  tone  of  it  in 
this  respect: 

"  Excepting  only  the  horrible  system  of  the  West  India 
Islands,  we  have  never  heard  of  slavery  in  any  country, 
ancient  or  modern,  pagan,  Mohammedan,  or  Christian,  so 
terrible  in  its  character,  so  pernicious  in  its  tendency,  so 
remediless  in  its  anticipated  results,  as  the  slavery  which 
exists  in  these  United  States.  .  .  .  When  we  use  the 
strong  language  which  we  feel  ourselves  compelled  to  use 
in  relation  to  this  subject,  we  do  not  mean  to  speak  of 
animal  suffering,  but  of  an  immense  moral  and  political 
evil.  ...  In  regard  to  its  influence  on  the  white  popu- 
lation the  most  lamentable  proof  of  its  deteriorating  effects 
may  be  found  in  the  fact  that,  excepting  the  pious,  whose 
hearts  are  governed  by  the  Christian  law  of  reciprocity 
between  man  and  man,  and  the  wise,  whose  minds  have 
looked  far  into  the  relations  and  tendencies  of  things,  none 
can  be  found  to  lift  their  voices  against  a  system  so  utterly 
repugnant  to  the  feelings  of  unsophisticated  humanity — a 
system  which  permits  all  the  atrocities  of  the  domestic 
slave  trade — which  permits  the  father  to  sell  his  children 
as  he  would  his  cattle — a  system  which  consigns  one  lialf 
of  the  community  to  hopeless  and  utter  degradation,  and 
which  threatens  in  its  final  catastrophe  to  bring  down  the 
same  ruin  on  the  master  and  the  slave."  ^ 

1  "Christian  Spectator,"  1823,  pp.  493,  494,  341;  "The  Earlier  Anti- 
slavery  Days,"  by  L.  Bacon,  in  the  "  Christian  Union,"  December  9  and  16, 
1874,  January  6  and  13,  1875.  It  is  one  of  the  "  Curiosities  of  Literature," 
though  hardly  one  of  its  "  Amenities,"  that  certain  phrases  carefully  dissected 


RELIGIOUS  ANTISLAVEKV  EFFORT.  2/3 

The  historical  value  of  the  paper  from  which  these  brief 
extracts  are  given,  as  illustrating  the  attitude  of  the  church 
at  the  time,  is  enhanced  by  the  use  that  was  made  of  it. 
Published  in  the  form  of  a  review  article  in  a  magazine  of 
national  circulation,  the  recognized  organ  of  the  orthodox 
Congregationalists,  it  was  republished  in  a  pamphlet  for 
gratuitous  distribution  and  extensively  circulated  in  New 
England  by  the  agency  of  the  Andover  students.  It  was 
also  republished  at  Richmond,  Va.  Other  laborers  at  the 
East  in  the  same  cause  were  Joshua  Leavitt,  Bela  B. 
Edwards,  and  Eli  Smith,  afterward  illustrious  as  a  mission- 
ary,^ and  Ralph  Randolph  Gurley,  secretary  of  the  Coloni- 
zation Society,  whose  edition  of  the  powerful  and  uncom- 
promising sermon  of  the  younger  Edwards  on  "  The 
Injustice  and  Impolicy  of  the  Slave  Trade  and  of  the 
Slavery  of  the  Africans  "  was  published  at  Boston  for  cir- 
culation at  the  South,  in  hopes  of  promoting  the  universal 
abolition  of  slavery.  The  list  might  be  indefinitely  ex- 
tended to  include  the  foremost  names  in  the  church  in 
that  period.     There  was  no  adverse  party. 

At  the  West  an  audacious  movement  of  the  slavery 
extension  politicians,  flushed  with  their  success  in  Missouri, 
to  introduce  slavery  into  Illinois,  Indiana,  and  even  Ohio, 
was  defeated  largely  by  the  aid  of  the  Baptist  and  Metho- 
dist clergy,  many  of  whom  had  been  southern  men  and 
had  experienced  the  evils  of  the  system.^  In  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee  the  abolition  movement  was  led  more  dis- 
tinctively by  the  Presbyterians  and  the  Quakers.      It  was 

from  this  paper  (which  was  written  by  Mr.  Bacon  at  the  age  of  twenty-one) 
should  be  pertinaciously  used,  in  the  face  of  repeated  exposures,  to  prove  the 
author  of  it  to  be  an  apologist  for  slavery! 

1  "Christian  Spectator,"  1825-1828. 

2  Wilson,  "  Slave  Power  in  America,"  vol.  i.,  p.  164;  "James  G.  Birney 
and  his  Times,"  pp.  64,  65.  This  last-named  book  is  an  interesting  and 
valuable  contribution  of  materials  for  history,  especially  by  its  refutation  of 
certain  industriously  propagated  misrepresentations. 


274  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvi. 

a  bold  effort  to  procure  the  manumission  of  slaves  and  the 
repeal  of  the  slave  code  in  those  States  by  the  agreement 
of  the  citizens.  The  character  of  the  movement  is  indi- 
cated in  the  constitution  of  the  "  Moral  Religious  Manu- 
mission Society  of  West  Tennessee,"  which  declares  that 
slavery  "exceeds  any  other  crime  in  magnitude"  and  is 
"  the  greatest  act  of  practical  infidelity,"  and  that  "  the 
gospel  of  Christ,  if  believed,  would  remove  personal  slav- 
ery at  once  by  destroying  the  will  in  the  tyrant  to  enslave."  ^ 
A  like  movement  in  North  Carolina  and  in  Maryland,  at 
the  same  time,  attained  to  formidable  dimensions.  The 
state  of  sentiment  in  Virginia  may  be  judged  from  the 
fact  that  so  late  as  December,  1831,  in  the  memorable 
debate  in  the  legislature  on  a  proposal  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery,  a  leading  speaker,  denouncing  slavery  as  "the 
most  pernicious  of  all  the  evils  with  which  the  body  politic 
can  be  afflicted,"  could  say,  undisputed,  "By  none  is  this 
position  denied,  if  we  except  the  erratic  John  Randolph."  - 
The  conflict  in  Virginia  at  that  critical  time  was  between 
Christian  principle  and  wise  statesmanship  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  selfish  interest  and  ambition, 
and  the  prevailing  terror  resulting  from  a  recent  servile 
insurrection.  Up  to  this  time  there  appears  no  sign  of 
any  division  in  the  church  on  this  subject.  Neither  was 
there  any  sectional  division ;  the  opponents  of  slavery, 
whether  at  the  North  or  at  the  South,  were  acting  in  the 
interest  of  the  common  country,  and  particularly  in  the 
interest  of  the  States  that  were  still  afflicted  with  slavery. 
But  a  swift  change  was  just  impending. 

1  "  Birney  and  his  Times,"  chap,  xii.,  on  "  Abolition  in  the  South  before 
1828."  Much  is  to  be  learned  on  this  neglected  topic  in  American  history 
from  the  reports  of  the  National  Convention  for  the  Abolition  of  Slavery, 
meeting  biennially,  with  some  intermissions,  at  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and 
Washington  down  to  1829.  An  incomplete  file  of  these  reports  is  at  the 
library  of  Brown  University. 

2  Wilson,  "  The  Slave  Power,"  vol.  i.,  chap.  xiv. 


AXJISLAVERY  CHURCH  DISCIPLINE.  275 

We  have  already  recognized  the  Methodist  organization 
as  the  effective  pioneer  of  systematic  aboHtionism  in 
America.^  The  Baptists,  also  having  their  main  strength 
in  the  southern  States,  were  early  and  emphatic  in  con- 
demning the  institutions  by  which  they  were  surrounded. - 
But  all  the  sects  found  themselves  embarrassed  by  serious 
difficulties  when  it  came  to  the  practical  application  of  the 
principles  and  rules  which  they  enunciated.  The  exacting 
of  "  immediate  emancipation  "  as  a  condition  of  fellowship 
in  the  ministry  or  communion  in  the  church,  and  the  popu- 
lar cries  of  "No  fellowship  with  slave-holders,"  and 
"  Slave-holding  always  and  everywhere  a  sin,"  were  found 
practically  to  conflict  with  frequent  undeniable  and  stub- 
born facts.  The  cases  in  which  conscientious  Christians 
found  themselves,  by  no  fault  of  their  own,  invested  by 
inhuman  laws  wuth  an  absolute  authority  over  helpless 
fellow-men,  which  it  w'ould  not  be  right  for  them  suddenly 
to  abdicate,  were  not  few  nor  unimportant.^  In  dealing 
with  such  cases  several  different  courses  were  open  to  the 
church:  (i)  To  execute  discipline  rigorously  according  to 
the  formula,  on  the  principle,  Be  rid  of  the  tares  at  all 
hazards;  never  mind  the  wheat.  This  course  was  natu- 
rally favored  by  some  of  the  minor  Presbyterian  sects,  and 
was  apt  to  be  vigorously  urged  by  zealous  people  living 

1  See  above,  pp.  204,  205. 

2  Newman,  "  The  Baptists,"  pp.  288,  305.  Let  me  make  general  refer- 
ence to  the  volumes  of  the  American  Church  History  Series  by  their  several 
indexes,  s.  v.  Slavery. 

3  One  instance  for  illustration  is  as  good  as  ten  thousand.  It  is  from  the 
"  Life  of  James  G.  Birney,"  a  man  of  the  highest  integrity  of  conscience: 
"  Michael,  the  husband  and  father  of  the  family  legally  owned  by  Mr.  Birney, 
and  who  had  been  brought  up  with  him  from  boyhood,  had  been  unable  to 
conquer  his  appetite  for  strong  liquors,  and  needed  the  constant  watchful  care 
of  his  master  and  friend.  For  some  years  the  probability  was  that  if  free  he 
would  become  a  confirmed  drunkard  and  beggar  his  family.  The  children 
were  nearly  grown,  but  had  little  mental  capacity.  For  years  Michael  had 
understood  that  his  freedom  would  be  restored  to  him  as  soon  as  he  could 
control  his  love  of  ardent  spirits  "  (pp.  108,  109). 


276  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvi. 

at  a  distance  and  not  well  acquainted  with  details  of  fact. 
(2)  To  attempt  to  provide  for  all  cases  by  stated  exceptions 
and  saving  clauses.  This  course  was  entered  on  by  the 
Methodist  Church,  but  without  success.  (3)  Discouraged 
by  the  difficulties,  to  let  go  all  discipline.  This  was  the 
point  reached  at  last  by  most  of  the  southern  churches. 
(4)  Clinging  to  the  formulas,  "  Immediate  emancipation," 
"  No  communion  with  slave-holders,"  so  to  "  palter  in  a 
double  sense  "  with  the  words  as  to  evade  the  meaning  of 
them.  According  to  this  method,  slave-holding  did  not 
consist  in  the  holding  of  slaves,  but  in  holding  them  with 
evil  purpose  and  wrong  treatment;  a  slave  who  was  held 
for  his  own  advantage,  receiving  from  his  master  "  that 
which  is  just  and  equal,"  was  said,  in  this  dialect,  to  be 
"  morally  emancipated."  This  was  the  usual  expedient  of 
a  large  and  respectable  party  of  antislavery  Christians  at 
the  North,  when  their  principle  of  "  no  communion  with 
slave-holders  "  brought  them  to  the  seeming  necessity  of 
excommunicating  an  unquestionably  Christian  brother  for 
doing  an  undeniable  duty.  (5)  To  lay  down,  broadly  and 
explicitly,  the  principles  of  Christian  morality  governing 
the  subject,  leaving  the  application  of  them  in  individual 
cases  to  the  individual  church  or  church-member.  This 
was  the  course  exemplified  with  admirable  wisdom  and 
fidehty  in  the  Presbyterian  "  deHverance"  of  18 18.  (6)  To 
meet  the  postulate,  laid  down  with  so  much  assurance,  as 
if  an  axiom,  that  "  slave-holding  is  always  and  everywhere 
a  sin,  to  be  immediately  repented  of  and  forsaken,"  with 
a  flat  and  square  contradiction,  as  being  irreconcilable  with 
facts  and  with  the  judgment  of  the  Christian  Scriptures  ; 
and  thus  to  condemn  and  oppose  to  the  utmost  the  sys- 
tem of  slavery,  without  imputing  the  guilt  of  it  to  persons 
involved  in  it  by  no  fault  of  their  own.  This  course  com- 
mended itself  to  many  lucid  and  logical  minds  and  honest 


THE   SOUTH ERX  APOSTASY.  2/7 

consciences,  including  some  of  the  most  consistent  and 
effective  opponents  of  slavery.  (7)  Still  another  course 
must  be  mentioned,  which,  absurd  as  it  seems,  was  actually- 
pursued  by  a  few  headlong  reformers,  who  showed  in 
various  ways  a  singular  alacrity  at  playing  into  the  hands 
of  their  adversaries.  It  consisted  in  enunciating  in  the 
most  violent  and  untenable  form  and  the  most  offensive 
language  the  proposition  that  all  slave-holding  is  sin  and 
ever>'  slave-holder  a  criminal,  and  making  the  whole  attack 
on  slavery  to  turn  on  this  weak  pivot  and  fail  if  this  failed. 
The  argument  of  this  sort  of  abolitionist  was  :  If  there  can 
be  found  anywhere  a  good  man  holding  a  bond-servant 
unselfishly,  kindly,  and  for  good  reason  justifiably,  then 
the  system  of  American  slavery  is  right.  ^  It  is  not  strange 
that  men  in  the  southern  churches,  being  offered  such  an 
argument  ready  made  to  their  hand,  should  promptly  ac- 
cept both  the  premiss  and  the  conclusion,  and  that  so  at 
last  there  should  begin  to  be  a  pro-slavery  party  in  the 
American  church. 

The  disastrous  epoch  of  the  beginning  of  what  has  been 
called  "  the  southern  apostasy  "  from  the  universal  moral 
sentiment  of  Christendom  on  the  subject  of  slavery  may 
be  dated  at  about  the  year  1833.  A  year  earlier  began 
to  be  heard  those  vindications  on  political  grounds  of  what 
had  just  been  declared  in  the  legislature  of  Virginia  to  be 
by  common  consent  the  most  pernicious  of  political  evils 
— vindications  which  continued  for  thirty  years  to  invite 
the  wonder  of  the  civilized  world.  When  (about  1833)  a 
Presbyterian  minister  in  Mississippi,  the  Rev.  James  Smy- 
lie,  made  the  "  discovery,"  which  "  surprised  himself,"  that 
the  system  of  American  slavery  was  sanctioned  and  ap- 

l  "  If  human  beings  could  be  justly  held  in  bondage  for  one  hour,  they 
could  be  for  days  and  weeks  and  years,  and  so  on  indefinitely  from  genera- 
tion to  generation"  ("  Life  of  W.  L.  Garrison,"  vol.  i.,  p.  140). 


278  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvi. 

proved  by  the  Scriptures  as  good  and  righteous,  he  found 
that  his  brethren  in  the  Presbyterian  ministry  at  the  ex- 
treme South  were  not  only  surprised,  but  shocked  and 
offended,  at  the  proposition.^  And  yet  such  was  the  swift 
progress  of  this  innovation  that  in  surprisingly  few  years, 
we  might  almost  say  months,  it  had  become  not  only  prev- 
alent, but  violently  and  exclusively  dominant  in  the 
church  of  the  southern  States,  with  the  partial  exception 
of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find 
a  precedent  in  history  for  so  sudden  and  sweeping  a  change 
of  sentiment  on  a  leading  doctrine  of  moral  theology. 
Dissent  from  the  novel  dogma  was  suppressed  with  more 
than  inquisitorial  rigor.  It  was  less  perilous  to  hold  Prot- 
estant opinions  in  Spain  or  Austria  than  to  hold,  in  Caro- 
lina or  Alabama,  the  opinions  which  had  but  lately  been 
commended  to  universal  acceptance  by  the  unanimous 
voice  of  great  religious  bodies,  and  proclaimed  as  undis- 
puted principles  by  leading  statesmen.  It  became  one  of 
the  accepted  evidences  of  Christianity  at  the  South  that 
infidelity  failed  to  offer  any  justification  for  American 
slavery  equal  to  that  derived  from  the  Christian  Scriptures. 
That  eminent  leader  among  the  Lutheran  clergy,  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Bachman,  of  Charleston,  referred  "  that  unexampled 
unanimity  of  sentiment  that  now  exists  in  the  whole 
South  on  the  subject  of  slavery  "  to  the  confidence  felt  by 
the  religious  public  in  the  Bible  defense  of  slavery  as  set 
forth  by  clergymen  and  laymen  in  sermons  and  pamphlets 
and  speeches  in  Congress.^ 

The  historian  may  not  excuse  himself  from  the  task  of 
inquiring  into  the  cause  of  this  sudden  and  immense 
moral  revolution.     The  explanation  offered  by  Dr.  Bach- 

1  "New  Englander,"  vol.  xii.,  1854,  p.  639,  article  on  "  The  Southern 
Apostasy." 

-  Ibid.y  pp.   642-644, 


EFFECTS  OF  PANIC.  279 

man  is  the  very  thing  that  needs  to  be  explained.  How- 
came  the  Christian  public  throughout  the  slave-holding 
States,  which  so  short  a  time  before  had  been  unanimous 
in  finding  in  the  Bible  the  condemnation  of  their  slavery, 
to  find  all  at  once  in  the  Bible  the  divine  sanction  and 
defense  of  it  as  a  wise,  righteous,  and  permanent  institu- 
tion ?  Doubtless  there  was  mixture  of  influences  in  bring- 
ing about  the  result.  The  immense  advance  in  the  market 
value  of  slaves  consequent  on  Whitney's  invention  of  the 
cotton-gin  had  its  unconscious  effect  on  the  moral  judg- 
ments of  some.  The  furious  vituperations  of  a  very  small 
but  noisy  faction  of  antislavery  men  added  something  to 
the  swift  current  of  public  opinion.  But  demonstrably  the 
chief  cause  of  this  sudden  change  of  religious  opinion — 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  in  the  history  of  the  church 
— was  panic  terror.  In  August,  1 83 1 ,  a  servile  insurrection 
in  Virginia,  led  by  a  crazy  negro,  Nat  Turner  by  name, 
was  followed  (as  always  in  such  cases)  by  bloody  venge- 
ance on  the  part  of  the  whites. 

"The  Southampton  insurrection,  occurring  at  a  time 
when  the  price  of  slaves  was  depressed  in  consequence  of 
a  depression  in  the  price  of  cotton,  gave  occasion  to  a 
sudden  development  of  opposition  to  slavery  in  the  legis- 
lature of  Virginia.  A  measure  for  the  prospective  aboli- 
tion of  the  institution  in  that  ancient  commonwealth  was 
proposed,  earnestly  debated,  eloquently  urged,  and  at  last 
defeated,  with  a  minority  ominously  large  in  its  favor. 
Warned  by  so  great  a  peril,  and  strengthened  soon  after- 
ward by  an  increase  in  the  market  value  of  cotton  and  of 
slaves,  the  slave-holding  interest  in  all  the  South  was 
stimulated  to  new  activity.  Defenses  of  slavery  more 
audacious  than  had  been  heard  before  began  to  be  uttered 
by  southern  politicians  at  home  and  by  southern  represent- 
atives and  senators  in  Congress.  A  panic  seized  upon 
the  planters  in  some   districts  of  the  Southwest.     Con- 


28o  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvi. 

spiracles  and  plans  of  insurrection  were  discovered. 
Negroes  were  tortured  or  terrified  into  confessions. 
Obnoxious  white  men  were  put  to  death  without  any 
legal  trial  and  in  defiance  of  those  rules  of  evidence  which 
are  insisted  on  by  southern  laws.  Thus  a  sudden  and 
convincing  terror  was  spread  through  the  South.  Every 
man  was  made  to  know  that  if  he  should  become  obnox- 
ious to  the  guardians  of  the  great  southern  '  institution ' 
he  was  liable  to  be  denounced  and  murdered.  It  was  dis- 
tinctly and  imperatively  demanded  that  nobody  should  be 
allowed  to  say  anything  anywhere  against  slavery.  The 
movement  of  the  societies  which  had  then  been  recently 
formed  at  Boston  and  New  York,  with  '  Immediate  aboli- 
tion '  for  their  motto,  was  made  use  of  to  stimulate  the 
terror  and  the  fury  of  the  South.  .  .  .  The  position  of 
political  parties  and  of  candidates  for  the  Presidency,  just 
at  that  juncture,  gave  special  advantage  to  the  agitators — 
an  advantage  that  was  not  neglected.  Everything  was 
done  that  practiced  demagogues  could  contrive  to  stimu- 
late the  South  into  a  frenzy  and  to  put  down  at  once  and 
forever  all  opposition  to  slavery.  The  clergy  and  the 
religious  bodies  were  summoned  to  the  patriotic  duty  of 
committing  themselves  on  the  side  of  '  southern  institu- 
tions.' Just  then  it  was,  if  we  mistake  not,  that  their 
apostasy  began.  They  dared  not  say  that  slavery  as  an 
institution  in  the  State  is  essentially  an  organized  injustice, 
and  that,  though  the  Scriptures  rightly  and  wisely  enjoin 
justice  and  the  recognition  of  the  slaves'  brotherhood  upon 
masters,  and  conscientious  meekness  upon  slaves,  the 
organized  injustice  of  the  institution  ought  to  be  abolished 
by  the  shortest  process  consistent  with  the  public  safety 
and  the  welfare  of  the  enslaved.  They  dared  not  even 
keep  silence  under  the  plea  that  the  institution  is  political 
and  therefore  not  to  be  meddled  with  by  religious  bodies 
or  rehgious  persons.  They  yielded  to  the  demand.  They 
were  carried  along  in  the  current  of  the  popular  frenzy; 
they  joined  in  the  clamor,  '  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephe- 
sians;'    they  denounced  the  fanaticism  of  abolition  and 


A   REIGN  OF  TERROR.  28 1 

permitted  themselves  to  be  understood  as  certifying,  in 
the  name  of  reHgion  and  of  Christ,  that  the  entire  institu- 
tion of  slavery  '  as  it  exists '  is  chargeable  with  no  injus- 
tice and  is  warranted  by  the  word  of  God,"^ 

There  is  no  good  reason  to  question  the  genuineness 
and  sincerity  of  the  fears  expressed  by  the  slave-holding 
population  as  a  justification  of  their  violent  measures  for 
the  suppression  of  free  speech  in  relation  to  slavery ;  nor 
of  their  belief  that  the  papers  and  prints  actively  dissemi- 
nated from  the  antislavery  press  in  Boston  were  fitted,  if 
not  distinctly  intended,  to  kindle  bloody  insurrections. 
These  terrors  were  powerfully  pleaded  in  the  great  debate 
in  the  Virginia  legislature  as  an  argument  for  the  abolition 
of  slavery.-  This  failing,  they  became  throughout  the 
South  a  constraining  power  for  the  suppression  of  free 
speech,  not  only  on  the  part  of  outsiders,  but  among  the 
southern  people  themselves.  The  regime  thus  introduced 
was,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  phrase,  "  a  reign  of  ter- 
ror." The  universal  lockjaw  which  thenceforth  forbade 
the  utterance  of  what  had  so  recently  and  suddenly  ceased 
to  be  the  unanimous  religious  conviction  of  the  southern 
church  soon  produced  an  "  unexampled  unanimity  "  on  the 
other  side,  broken  only  when  some  fiery  and  indomitable 
abolitionist  Hke  Dr.  Robert  J.  Breckinridge,  of  the  Pres- 
byterian Church  in  Kentucky,  delivered  his  soul  with  in- 
vectives against  the  system  of  slavery  and  the  new-fangled 
apologies  that  had  been  devised  to  defend  it,  declaring  it 
"  utterly  indefensible  on  every  correct  human  principle, 
and  utterly  abhorrent  from  every  law  of  God,"  and  ex- 
claiming, "  Out  upon  such  folly !  The  man  who  cannot 
see  that  involuntary  domestic  slavery,  as  it  exists  among 
us,  is  founded  on  the  principle  of  taking  by  force  that 

1  "New  Englander,"  vol.  xii.,  1854,  pp.  660,  661. 

2  Wilson,  "  The  Slave  Power,"  vol.  i.,  pp.  190-207. 


282  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvi. 

which  is  another's  has  simply  no  moral  sense,  .  .  .  He- 
reditary slavery  is  without  pretense,  except  in  avowed 
rapacity."'  Of  course  the  antislavery  societies  which, 
under  various  names,  had  existed  in  the  South  by  hun- 
dreds were  suddenly  extinguished,  and  manumissions, 
which  had  been  going  on  at  the  rate  of  thousands  in  a 
year,  almost  entirely  ceased. 

The  strange  and  swiftly  spreading  moral  epidemic  did 
not  stop  at  State  boundary  lines.  At  the  North  the  main 
cause  of  defection  was  not,  indeed,  directly  operative. 
There  was  no  danger  there  of  servile  insurrection.  But 
there  was  true  sympathy  for  those  who  lived  under  the 
shadow  of  such  impending  horrors,  threatening  alike  the 
guilty  and  the  innocent.  There  was  a  deep  passion  of 
honest  patriotism,  now  becoming  alarmed  lest  the  threats 
of  disunion  proceeding  from  the  terrified  South  should 
prove  a  serious  peril  to  the  nation  in  whose  prosperity  the 
hopes  of  the  world  seemed  to  be  involved.  There  was  a 
worthy  solicitude  lest  the  bonds  of  intercourse  between  the 
churches  of  North  and  South  should  be  ruptured  and  so 
the  integrity  of  the  nation  be  the  more  imperiled.  Withal 
there  was  a  spreading  and  deepening  and  most  reasonable 
disgust  at  the  reckless  ranting  of  a  little  knot  of  antislavery 
men  having  their  headquarters  at  Boston,  who,  exulting  in 
their  irresponsibility,  scattered  loosely  appeals  to  men's 
vindictive  passions  and  filled  the  unwilling  air  with  clam- 
ors against  church  and  ministry  and  Bible  and  law  and 
government,  denounced  as  "  pro-slavery  "  all  who  decHned 
to  accept  their  measures  or  their  persons,  and,  arrogating  to 
themselves  exclusively  the  name  of  abolitionist,  made  that 
name,  so  long  a  title  of  honor,  to  be  universally  odious.^ 

1  "Biblical  Repertory,"  Princeton,  July,  1833,  pp.  294,  295,  303. 

2  The  true  story  of  Mr.  William  Lloyd  Garrison  and  his  little  party  has  yet 
to  be  written  faithfully  and  fully.  As  told  by  his  family  and  friends  and  by 
himself,  it  is  a  monstrous  falsification  of  history.    One  of  the  best  sources  of 


PRO-SLAVERY  REACTION.  283 

These  various  factors  of  public  opinion  were  actively 
manipulated.  Political  parties  competed  for  the  southern 
vote.  Commercial  houses  competed  for  southern  busi- 
ness. Religious  sects,  parties,  and  societies  were  emulous 
in  conciliating  southern  adhesions  or  contributions  and 
averting  schisms.  The  condition  of  success  in  any  of 
these  cases  was  well  understood  to  be  concession,  or  at 
least  silence,  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  The  pressure  of 
motives,  some  of  which  were  honorable  and  generous,  was 
everywhere,  like  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere.  It  was 
not  strange  that  there  should  be  defections  from  right- 
eousness. Even  the  enormous  effrontery  of  the  slave 
power  in  demanding  for  its  own  security  that  the  rule  of 
tyrannous  law  and  mob  violence  by  which  freedom  of 
speech  and  of  the  press  had  been  extinguished  at  the 
South  should  be  extended  over  the  so-called  free  States 
did  not  fail  of  finding  citizens  of  reputable  standing  so 
base  as  to  give  the  demand  their  countenance,  their  public 
advocacy,  and  even  their  personal  assistance.  As  the 
subject  emerged  from  time  to  time  in  the  religious  com- 
munity, the  questions  arising  were  often  confused  and 
embarrassed  by  false  issues  and  illogical  statements,  and 
the  state  of  opinion  was  continually  misrepresented  through 
the  incurable  habit  of  the  over-zealous  in  denouncing  as 
"  pro-slavery "  those  who  dissented  from  their  favorite 
formulas.  But  after  all  deductions,  the  historian  who 
shall  by  and  by  review  this  period  with  the  advantage  of 
a  longer  perspective  will  be  compelled  to  record  not  a  few 
lamentable  defections,  both  individual  and  corporate,  from 

authentic  material  for  this  chapter  of  history  is  "  James  G.  Birney  and  his 
Times,"  by  General  William  Birney,  pp.  269-331.  I  may  also  refer  to  my 
volume,  "  Irenics  and  Polemics  "  (New  York,  the  Christian  Literature  Co.), 
pp.  145-202.  The  sum  of  the  story  is  given  thus,  in  the  words  of  Charles 
Sumner:  "  An  omnibus-load  of  Boston  abolitionists  has  done  more  harm  to 
the  antislavery  cause  than  all  its  enemies"  ("  Birney,"  p.  331). 


284  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvi. 

the  cause  of  freedom,  justice,  and  humanity.  And,  never- 
theless, that  later  record  will  also  show  that  while  the 
southern  church  had  been  terrified  into  "  an  unexampled 
unanimity "  in  renouncing  the  principles  which  it  had 
unanimously  held,  and  while  like  causes  had  wrought 
potently  upon  northern  sentiment,  it  was  the  steadfast 
fidelity  of  the  Christian  people  that  saved  the  nation  from 
ruin.  At  the  end  of  thirty  years  from  the  time  when  the 
soil  of  Missouri  was  devoted  to  slavery  the  "  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill  "  was  proposed,  which  should  open  for  the 
extension  of  slavery  the  vast  expanse  of  national  territory 
which,  by  the  stipulation  of  the  "  Missouri  Compromise," 
had  been  forever  consecrated  to  freedom.  The  issue  of 
the  extension  of  slavery  was  presented  to  the  people  in  its 
simplicity.  The  action  of  the  clergy  of  New  England  was 
prompt,  spontaneous,  emphatic,  and  practically  unanimous. 
Their  memorial,  with  three  thousand  and  fifty  signatures, 
protested  against  the  bill,  "  in  the  name  of  Almighty  God 
and  in  his  presence,"  as  "  a  great  moral  wrong;  as  a  breach 
of  faith  eminently  injurious  to  the  moral  principles  of  the 
community  and  subversive  of  all  confidence  in  national 
engagements;  as  a  measure  full  of  danger  to  the  peace 
and  even  the  existence  of  our  beloved  Union,  and  expos- 
ing us  to  the  just  judgments  of  the  Almighty."  In  like 
manner  the  memorial  of  one  hundred  and  fifty-one  clergy- 
men of  various  denominations  in  New  York  City  and 
vicinity  protested  in  like  terms,  "  in  the  name  of  religion 
and  humanity,"  against  the  guilt  of  the  extension  of  slav- 
ery. Perhaps  there  has  been  no  occasion  on  which  the 
consenting  voice  of  the  entire  church  has  been  so  solemnly 
uttered  on  a  question  of  public  morahty,  and  this  in  the 
very  region  in  which  church  and  clergy  had  been  most 
stormily  denounced  by  the  little  handful  of  abolitionists 


CHURCH  AGAINST  DRUNKENNESS.  285 

who  gloried  in  the  name  of  infidel  ^  as  recreant  to  justice 
and  humanity. 

The  protest  of  the  church  was  of  no  avail  to  defeat  the 
machination  of  demagogues.  The  iniquitous  measure  was 
carried  through.  But  this  was  not  the  end ;  it  was  only 
the  beginning  of  the  end.  Yet  ten  years,  and  American 
slavery,  through  the  mad  folly  of  its  advocates  and  the 
steadfast  fidelity  of  the  great  body  of  the  earnestly  re- 
ligious people  of  the  land,  was  swept  away  by  the  tide  of 
war. 

The  long  struggle  of  the  American  church  against 
drunkenness  as  a  social  and  public  evil  begins  at  an  early 
date.  One  of  the  thirteen  colonies,  Georgia,  had  the  pro- 
hibition of  slavery  and  of  the  importation  of  spirituous 
liquors  incorporated  by  Oglethorpe  in  its  early  and  short- 
lived constitution.  It  would  be  interesting  to  discover,  if 
we  could,  to  what  extent  the  rigor  of  John  Wesley's  dis- 
cipline against  both  these  mischiefs  was  due  to  his  associ- 
ation with  Oglethorpe  in  the  founding  of  that  latest  of  the 
colonies.  Both  the  imperious  nature  of  Wesley  and  the 
peculiar  character  of  his  fraternity  as  being  originally  not 
a  church,  but  a  voluntary  society  within  the  church,  pre- 
disposed to  a  policy  of  arbitrary  exclusiveness  by  hard 
and  fast  lines  drawn  according  to  formula,  which  might 
not  have  been  ventured  on  by  one  who  was  consciously 
drawing  up  the  conditions  of  communion  in  the  church. 
In  the  Puritan  colonies  the  public  morals  in  respect  to 
temperance  were  from  the  beginning  guarded  by  salutary 
license  laws  devised  to  suppress  all  dram-shops  and  tip- 
pling-houses,  and  to  prevent,  as  far  as  law  could  wisely 
undertake  to  prevent,  all  abusive  and  mischievous  sales  of 

1   Birney,  p.  321. 


286  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvi. 

liquor.  But  these  indications  of  a  sound  public  sentiment 
did  not  prevent  the  dismal  fact  of  a  wide  prevalence  of 
drunkenness  as  one  of  the  distinguishing  characteristics  of 
American  society  at  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Two  circumstances  had  combined  to  aggravate  the  national 
vice.  Seven  years  of  army  life,  with  its  exhaustion  and 
exposure  and  military  social  usage,  had  initiated  into 
dangerous  drinking  habits  many  of  the  most  justly  influ- 
ential leaders  of  society,  and  the  example  of  these  had  set 
the  tone  for  all  ranks.  Besides  this,  the  increased  impor- 
tation and  manufacture  of  distilled  spirits  had  made  it 
easy  and  common  to  substitute  these  for  the  mild  fer- 
mented liquors  which  had  been  the  ordinary  drink  of  the 
people.  Gradually  and  unobserved  the  nation  had  settled 
down  into  a  slough  of  drunkenness  of  which  it  is  difificult 
for  us  at  this  date  to  form  a  clear  conception.  The  words 
of  Isaiah  concerning  the  drunkards  of  Ephraim  seem  not 
too  strong  to  apply  to  the  condition  of  American  society, 
that  "  all  tables  were  full  of  vomit  and  filthiness."  In  the 
prevalence  of  intemperate  drinking  habits  the  clergy  had 
not  escaped  the  general  infection.  "  The  priest  and  the 
prophet  had  gone  astray  through  strong  drink."  Individ- 
ual words  of  warning,  among  the  earliest  of  which  was  the 
classical  essay  of  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush  (1785),  failed  to 
arouse  general  attention.  The  new  century  was  well  ad- 
vanced before  the  stirring  appeals  of  Ebenezer  Porter, 
Lyman  Beecher,  Heman  Humphrey,  and  Jeremiah  Evarts 
had  awakened  in  the  church  any  eflfectual  conviction  of  sin 
in  the  matter.  The  appointment  of  a  strong  committee, 
in  181 1,  by  the  Presbyterian  General  Assembly  was 
promptly  followed  by  like  action  by  the  clergy  of  Massa- 
chusetts and  Connecticut,  leading  to  the  formation  of 
State  societies.  But  general  concerted  measures  on  a 
scale  commensurate  with  the  evil  to  be  overcome  must  be 


EARLY  TEMPERA XCE   REFORM.  287 

dated  from  the  organization  of  the  "  American  Society  for 
the  Promotion  of  Temperance,"  in  1826.  The  first  aim  of 
the  reformers  of  that  day  was  to  break  down  those  dom- 
ineering social  usages  which  almost  enforced  the  habit  of 
drinking  in  ordinary  social  intercourse.  The  achievement 
of  this  object  was  wonderfully  swift  and  complete.  A 
young  minister  whose  pastorate  had  begun  at  about  the 
same  time  with  the  organizing  of  the  national  temperance 
society  was  able  at  the  end  of  five  years  to  bear  this  testi- 
mony in  the  presence  of  those  who  were  in  a  position  to 
recognize  any  misstatement  or  exaggeration : 

"  The  wonderful  change  which  the  past  five  years  have 
witnessed  in  the  manners  and  habits  of  this  people  in  re- 
gard to  the  use  of  ardent  spirits — the  new  phenomenon  of 
an  intelligent  people  rising  up,  as  it  were,  with  one  con- 
sent, witliout  law,  without  any  attempt  at  legislation,  to 
put  down  by  the  mere  force  of  public  opinion,  expressing 
itself  in  voluntary  associations,  a  great  social  evil  which 
no  despot  on  earth  could  have  put  down  among  his  sub- 
jects by  any  system  of  efforts — has  excited  admiration 
and  roused  to  imitation  not  only  in  our  sister  country  of 
Great  Britain,  but  in  the  heart  of  continental  Europe."  ^ 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  for  any  possible  instruction  there 
may  be  in  it,  that  the  first,  greatest,  and  most  permanent 
of  the  victories  of  the  temperance  reformation,  the 
breaking  down  of  almost  universal  social  drinking  usages, 
was  accomplished  while  yet  the  work  was  a  distinctively 
religious  one,  "  without  law  or  attempt  at  legislation,"  and 
while  the  efforts  at  suppression  were  directed  at  the  use 
of  ardent  spirits.  The  attempt  to  combine  the  friends  of 
temperance  on  a  basis  of  "teetotal"  abstinence,  putting 
fermented  as  well  as  distilled  liquors  under  the  ban,  dates 
from  as  late  as  1836. 

1  Sermon  of  L.  Bacon  (MS.),  New  Haven,  July  4,  1830. 


288  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvi. 

But  it  soon  appeared  that  the  immense  gain  of  banish- 
ing ardent  spirits  from  the  family  table  and  sideboard, 
the  social  entertainment,  the  haying  field,  and  the  factory 
had  not  been  attained  without  some  corresponding  loss. 
Close  upon  the  heels  of  the  reform  in  the  domestic  and 
social  habits  of  the  people  there  was  spawned  a  monstrous 
brood  of  obscure  tippling-shops — a  nuisance,  at  least  in 
New  England,  till  then  unknown.  From  the  beginning 
wise  and  effective  license  laws  had  interdicted  all  dram- 
shops ;  even  the  taverner  might  sell  spirits  only  to  his 
transient  guests,  not  to  the  people  of  the  town.  With  the 
suppression  of  social  drinking  there  was  effected,  in  spite 
of  salutary  law  to  the  contrary,  a  woeful  change.  The 
American  "  saloon  "  was,  in  an  important  sense,  the  off- 
spring of  the  American  temperance  reformation.  The 
fact  justified  the  reformer  in  turning  his  attention  to  the 
law.  From  that  time  onward  the  history  of  the  temper- 
ance reformation  has  included  the  history  of  multitudi- 
nous experiments  in  legislation,  none  of  which  has  been  so 
conclusive  as  to  satisfy  all  students  of  the  subject  that  any 
later  law  is,  on  the  whole,  more  usefully  effective  than  the 
original  statutes  of  the  Puritan  colonies.^ 

In  1840  the  temperance  reformation  received  a  sudden 
forward  impulse  from  an  unexpected  source.  One  even- 
ing a  group  of  six  notoriously  hard  drinkers,  coming 
together  greatly  impressed  from  a  sermon  of  that  noted 
evangelist.  Elder  Jacob  Knapp,  pledged  themselves  by 
mutual  vows  to  total  abstinence ;  and  from  this  beginning 
went  forward  that  extraordinary  agitation  known  as  "  the 
Washingtonian  movement."  Up  to  this  time  the  aim  of 
the  reformers  had  been  mainly  directed  to  the  prevention 

1  "  Eastern  and  Western  States  of  America,"  by  J.  S.  Buckingham,  M.  P., 
vol.  i.,  pp.  408-413. 


WASIimCTOKIAN  MOVEMENT.  289 

of  drunkenness  by  a  change  in  social  customs  and  personal 
habits.  Now  there  was  suddenly  opened  a  door  of  hope 
to  the  almost  despair  of  the  drunkard  himself.  The 
lately  reformed  drunkards  of  Baltimore  set  themselves 
to  the  reforming  of  other  drunkards,  and  these  took  up 
the  work  in  their  turn,  and  reformation  was  extended  in 
a  geometrical  progression  till  it  covered  the  country. 
Everywhere  meetings  were  held,  to  be  addressed  by 
reformed  drunkards,  and  new  recruits  from  the  gutter 
were  pushed  forward  to  tell  their  experience  to  the  admir- 
ing public,  and  sent  out  on  speaking  tours.  The  people 
were  stirred  up  as  never  before  on  the  subject  of  temper- 
ance. There  was  something  very  Christian-like  in  the 
method  of  this  propagation,  and  hopeful  souls  looked  for- 
ward to  a  temperance  millennium  as  at  hand.  But  fatal 
faults  in  the  work  soon  discovered  themselves.  Among 
the  new  evangelists  were  not  a  few  men  of  true  penitence 
and  humility,  like  John  Hawkins,  and  one  man  at  least 
of  incomparable  eloquence  as  well  as  Christian  earnestness, 
John  B.  Gough.  But  the  public  were  not  long  in  finding 
that  merely  to  have  wallowed  in  vice  and  to  be  able  to 
tell  ludicrous  or  pathetic  stories  from  one's  experience  was 
not  of  itself  sufficient  qualification  for  the  work  of  a  public 
instructor  in  morals.  The  temperance  platform  became 
infested  with  swaggering  autobiographers,  whose  glory 
was  in  their  shame,  and  whose  general  influence  was  dis- 
tinctly demoralizing.  The  sudden  influx  of  the  tide  of 
enthusiasm  was  followed  by  a  disastrous  ebb.  It  was  the 
estimate  of  Mr.  Gough  that  out  of  six  hundred  thousand 
reformed  drunkards  not  less  than  four  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  had  relapsed  into  vice.  The  same  observer,  the 
splendor  of  whose  eloquence  was  well  mated  with  an  un- 
usual sobriety  of  judgment,  is  credited  with  the  statement 


290  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvi. 

that  he  knew  of  no  case  of  stable  reformation  from  drunk- 
enness that  was  not  connected  with  a  thorough  spiritual 
renovation  and  conversion. 

Certainly  good  was  accomplished  by  the  transient  whirl- 
wind of  the  "  Washingtonian  "  excitement.  But  the  evil 
that  it  did  lived  after  it.  Already  at  the  time  of  its  break- 
ing forth  the  temperance  reformation  had  entered  upon 
that  period  of  decadence  in  which  its  main  interest  was  to 
be  concentrated  upon  law  and  politics.  And  here  the 
vicious  ethics  of  the  reformed- drunkard  school  became 
manifest.  The  drunkard,  according  to  his  own  account  of 
himself  (unless  he  was  not  only  reformed,  but  repentant), 
had  been  a  victim  of  circumstances.  Drunkenness,  in- 
stead of  a  base  and  beastly  sin,  was  an  infirmity  incident 
to  a  high-strung  and  generous  temperament.  The  blame 
of  it  was  to  be  laid,  not  upon  the  drunkard,  whose  exqui- 
sitely susceptible  organization  was  quite  unable  to  resist 
temptation  coming  in  his  way,  but  on  those  who  put  in- 
toxicating liquor  where  he  could  get  at  it,  or  on  the  State, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  put  the  article  out  of  the  reach  of 
its  citizens.  The  guilt  of  drunkenness  must  rest,  not  on 
the  unfortunate  drunkard  who  happened  to  be  attacked 
by  that  disease,  but  on  the  sober  and  well-behaving  citi- 
zen, and  especially  the  Christian  citizen,  who  did  not  vote 
the  correct  ticket. 

What  may  be  called  the  Prohibition  period  of  the  tem- 
perance reformation  begins  about  1850  and  still  continues. 
It  is  characterized  by  the  pursuit  of  a  type  of  legislation 
of  variable  efficacy  or  inefficacy,  the  essence  of  which  is 
that  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquors  shall  be  a  monopoly 
of  the  government.^     Indications  begin  to  appear  that  the 

1  By  a  curious  anomaly  in  church  polity,  adhesion  to  this  particular  device 
of  legislation  is  made  constitutionally  a  part  of  the  discipline  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church.  In  most  other  communions  liberty  of  judgment  is 
permitted  as  to  the  form  of  legislation  best  fitted  to  the  end  sought. 


PROHIBITIONISM.  2  9 1 

disproportionate  devotion  to  measures  of  legislation  and 
politics  is  abating.  Some  of  the  most  effective  recent 
labor  for  the  promotion  of  temperance  has  been  wrought 
independently  of  such  resort.  If  the  cycle  shall  be  com- 
pleted, and  the  church  come  back  to  the  methods  by 
which  its  first  triumphs  in  this  field  were  won,  it  will  come 
back  the  wiser  and  the  stronger  for  its  vicissitudes  of  ex- 
perience through  these  threescore  years  and  ten. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

A  DECADE    OF    CONTROVERSIES  AND  SCHISMS. 

During  the  period  from  1835  to  1845  the  spirit  of 
schism  seemed  to  be  in  the  air.  In  this  period  no  one 
of  the  larger  organizations  of  churches  was  free  from 
agitating  controversies,  and  some  of  the  most  important 
of  them  were  rent  asunder  by  explosion. 

At  the  time  when  the  Presbyterian  Church  suffered  its 
great  schism,  in  1837,  it  was  the  most  influential  religious 
body  in  the  United  States.  In  120  years  its  solitary 
presbytery  had  grown  to  135  presbyteries,  including  2140 
ministers  serving  2865  churches  and  220,557  communi- 
cants. But  these  large  figures  are  an  inadequate  measure 
of  its  influence.  It  represented  in  its  ministry  and  mem- 
bership the  two  most  masterful  races  on  the  continent, 
the  New  England  colonists  and  the  Scotch- Irish  immi- 
grants ;  and  the  tenacity  with  which  it  had  adhered  to  the 
tradition  derived  through  both  these  lines,  of  admitting 
none  but  liberally  educated  men  to  its  ministry,  had  given 
it  exceptional  social  standing  and  control  over  men  of  in- 
tellectual strength  and  leadership.  In  the  four  years 
beginning  with  183 1  the  additions  to  its  roll  of  communi- 
cants "  on  examination  "  had  numbered  nearly  one  hun- 
dred thousand.  But  this  spiritual  growth  was  chilled 
and  stunted  by  the  dissensions  that  arose.  The  revivals 
ceased  and  the  membership  actually  dwindled. 
292 


PRESBYTERIAN  PARTIES.  293 

The  contention  had  grown  (a  fact  not  without  parallel 
in  church  history)  out  of  measures  devised  in  the  interest 
of  cooperation  and  union.  In  1 801,  in  the  days  of  its 
comparative  feebleness,  the  General  Assembly  had  pro- 
posed to  the  General  Association  of  Connecticut  a  "  Plan 
of  Union  "  according  to  which  the  communities  of  New 
England  Christians  then  beginning  to  move  westward 
between  the  parallels  that  bound  "  the  New  England 
zone,"  and  bringing  with  them  their  accustomed  Congre- 
gational polity,  might  cooperate  on  terms  of  mutual  con- 
cession with  Presbyterian  churches  in  their  neighborhood. 
The  proposals  had  been  fraternally  received  and  accepted, 
and  under  the  terms  of  this  compact  great  accessions  had 
been  made  to  the  strength  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  of 
pastors  and  congregations  marked  with  the  intellectual 
activity  and  religious  enterprise  of  the  New  England 
churches,  who,  while  cordially  conforming  to  the  new 
methods  of  organization  and  discipline,  were  not  in  the 
least  penetrated  with  the  traditionary  Scotch  veneration 
for  the  Westminster  standards.  For  nearly  thirty  years 
the  great  reinforcements  from  New  England  and  from 
men  of  the  New  England  way  of  thinking  had  been  un- 
grudgingly bestowed  and  heartily  welcomed.  But  the 
great  accessions  which  in  the  first  four  years  of  the  fourth 
decade  of  this  century  had  increased  the  roll  of  the  com- 
municants of  the  Presbyterian  Church  by  more  than  fifty 
per  cent,  had  come  in  undue  proportion  from  the  New 
Englandized  regions  of  western  New  York  and  Ohio.  It 
was  inevitable  that  the  jealousy  of  hereditary  Presbyte- 
rians, "  whose  were  the  fathers,"  should  be  aroused  by 
the  perfectly  reasonable  fear  lest  the  traditional  ways  of 
the  church  which  they  felt  to  be  in  a  peculiar  sense 
their  church  might  be  affected  by  so  large  an  element 
from  without. 


294  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvll. 

The  grounds  of  explicit  complaint  against  the  party 
called  "  New  School "  were  principally  twofold — doctrine 
and  organization. 

In  the  Presbyterian  Church  at  this  time  were  three  pretty 
distinct  types  of  theological  thought.  First,  there  was 
the  unmitigated  Scotch  Calvinism;  secondly,  there  was 
the  modification  of  this  system,  which  became  naturalized^ 
in  the  church  after  the  Great  Awakening,  when  Jonathan 
Dickinson  and  Jonathan  Edwards,  from  neighbor  towns  in 
Massachusetts,  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  great  Pres- 
byterian theologians ;  thirdly,  there  was  the  "  consistent 
Calvinism,"  that  had  been  still  further  evolved  by  the 
patient  labor  of  students  in  direct  succession  from  Edwards, 
and  that  was  known  under  the  name  of  "  Hopkinsianism." 
Just  now  the  latest  and  not  the  least  eminent  in  this 
school.  Dr.  Nathaniel  W.  Taylor,  of  New  Haven,  was 
enunciating  to  large  and  enthusiastic  classes  in  Yale 
Divinity  School  new  definitions  and  forms  of  statement 
giving  rise  to  much  earnest  debate.  The  alarm  of  those 
to  whom  the  very  phrase  "  improvement  in  theology  " 
was  an  abomination  expressed  itself  in  futile  indictments 
for  heresy  brought  against  some  of  the  most  eminently 
godly  and  useful  ministers  in  all  the  church.  Lyman 
Beecher,  of  Lane  Seminary,  Edward  Beecher,  J.  M.  Stur- 
tevant,  and  William  Kirby,  of  Illinois  College,  and  George 
Duffield,  of  the  presbytery  of  Carlisle,  Pa.,  were  annoyed 
by  impeachments  for  heresy,  which  all  failed  before  reach- 
ing the  court  of  last  resort.  But  repeated  and  persistent 
prosecutions  of  Albert  Barnes,  of  Philadelphia,  were  des- 
tined to  more  conspicuous  failure,  by  reason  of  their  com- 
ing up  year  after  year  before  the  General  Assembly,  and 
also  by  reason  of  the  position  of  the  accused  as  pastor  of 
the  mother  church  of  the  denomination,  the  First  Church 
of  Philadelphia,  which  was  the  customary  meeting-place 


SCHISM  IMPENDING.  295 

of  the  Assembly  ;  withal  by  reason  of  the  character  of  the 
accused,  the  honor  and  love  in  which  he  was  held  for  his 
faithful  and  useful  work  as  pastor,  his  world-wide  fame  as 
a  devoted  and  believing  student  of  the  Scriptures,  and  the 
Christlike  gentleness  and  meekness  with  which  he  endured 
the  harassing  of  church  trials  continuing  through  a  period 
of  seven  years,  and  compelling  him,  under  an  irregular  and 
illegal  sentence  of  the  synod,  to  sit  silent  in  his  church  for 
the  space  of  a  year,  as  one  suspended  from  the  ministry. 

The  earliest  leaders  in  national  organization  for  the 
propagation  of  Christianity  at  home  and  abroad  were  the 
Congregationalists  of  New  England  and  men  like-minded 
with  them.  But  the  societies  thus  originated  were  or- 
ganized on  broad  and  catholic  principles,  and  invited  the 
cooperation  of  all  Christians.  They  naturally  became  the 
organs  of  much  of  the  active  beneficence  of  Presbyterian 
congregations,  and  the  Presbyterian  clergy  and  laity  were 
largely  represented  in  the  direction  of  them.  They  were 
recognized  and  commended  by  the  representative  bodies 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  As  a  point  of  high-church 
theory  it  was  held  by  the  rigidly  Presbyterian  party  that 
the  work  of  the  go.spel  in  all  its  departments  and  in  all 
lands  is  the  proper  function  of  "  the  church  as  such  " — 
meaning  practically  that  each  sect  ought  to  have  its  sepa- 
rate propaganda.  There  was  logical  strength  in  this  posi- 
tion as  reached  from  their  premisses,  and  there  were 
arguments  of  practical  convenience  to  be  urged  in  favor 
of  it.  But  the  demand  to  sunder  at  once  the  bonds  of 
fellowship  which  united  Christians  of  different  names  in 
the  beneficent  work  of  the  great  national  societies  was 
not  acceptable  even  to  the  whole  of  the  Old-School  party. 
To  the  New  Englanders  it  was  intolerable. 

There  were  other  and  less  important  grounds  of  differ- 
ence that  were  discussed  between  the  parties.     And  in 


296  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvii. 

the  background,  behind  them  all,  was  the  slavery  ques- 
tion. It  seems  to  have  been  willingly  kept  in  the  back- 
ground by  the  leaders  of  debate  on  both  sides ;  but  it  was 
there.  The  New-School  synods  and  presbyteries  of  the 
North  were  firm  in  their  adherence  to  the  antislavery 
principles  of  the  church.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Old- 
School  party  relied,  in  the  coup  d'eglisc  that  was  in  prepa- 
ration, on  the  support  of  "  an  almost  solid  South."  ^ 

It  was  an  unpardonable  offence  of  the  New-School 
party  that  it  had  grown  to  such  formidable  strength,  in- 
tellectually, spiritually,  and  numerically.  The  probability 
that  the  church  might,  with  the  continued  growth  and  in- 
fluence of  this  party,  become  Americanized  and  so  lose 
the  purity  of  its  thoroughgoing  Scotch  traditions  was  very 
real,  and  to  some  minds  very  dreadful.  To  these  the  very 
ark  of  God  seemed  in  danger.  Arraignments  for  heresy 
in  presbytery  and  synod  resulted  in  failure ;  and  when 
these  and  other  cases  involving  questions  of  orthodoxy  or 
of  the  policy  of  the  church  were  brought  into  the  supreme 
judicature  of  the  church,  the  solemn  but  unmistakable  fact 
disclosed  itself  that  even  the  General  Assembly  could  not 
be  relied  on  for  the  support  of  measures  introduced  by 
the  Old-School  leaders.  In  fact,  every  Assembly  from 
1 83 1  to  1836,  with  a  single  exception,  had  shown  a  clear 
New-School  majority.  The  foundations  were  destroyed, 
and  what  should  the  righteous  do? 

History  was  about  to  repeat  itself  with  unwonted  pre- 
ciseness  of  detail.  On  the  gathering  of  the  Assembly  of 
1837  a  careful  count  of  noses  revealed  what  had  been 
known  only  once  before  in  seven  years,  and  what  might 
never  be  again — a  clear  Old- School  majority  in  the  house. 
To  the  pious  mind  the  neglecting  of  such  an  opportunity 
would  have  been  to  tempt  Providence.  Without  notice, 
J  Johnson,  "The  Southern  Presbyterians,"  p.  359, 


I 


EXSCINDING   ACTS.  297 

without  complaint  or  charges  or  specifications,  without 
opportunity  of  defense,  4  synods,  including  533  churches 
and  more  than  100,000  communicants,  were  excommuni- 
cated by  a  majority  vote.  The  victory  of  pure  doctrine 
and  strict  church  order,  though  perhaps  not  exactly 
glorious,  was  triumphant  and  irreversible.  There  was  no 
more  danger  to  the  church  from  a  possible  New-School 
majority. 

When  the  four  exscinded  synods,  three  in  western  New 
York  and  one  in  Ohio,  .together  with  a  great  following  of 
sympathizing  congregations  in  all  parts  of  the  country, 
came  together  to  reconstruct  their  shattered  polity,  they 
were  found  to  number  about  four  ninths  of  the  late  Pres- 
byterian Church.  For  thirty  years  the  American  church 
was  to  present  to  Christendom  the  strange  spectacle  of  two 
great  ecclesiastical  bodies  claiming  identically  the  same 
name,  holding  the  same  doctrinal  standards,  observing  the 
same  ritual  and  governed  by  the  same  discipline,  and 
occupying  the  same  great  territory,  and  yet  completely 
dissevered  from  each  other  and  at  times  in  relations  of 
sharp  mutual  antagonism.' 

The  theological  debate  which  had  split  the  Presbyterian 
Church  from  end  to  end  was  quite  as  earnest  and  copious 
in  New  England.  But  owing  to  the  freer  habit  of  theo- 
logi.al  inquiry  and  the  looser  texture  of  organization 
among  the  Congregationalist  churches,  it  made  no  organic 
schism  beyond  the  setting  up  of  a  new  theological  semi- 

1  For  the  close  historical  parallel  to  the  exscinding  acts  of  1837  see  page 
167,  above.  A  later  parallel,  it  is  claimed,  is  found  in  the  "  virtually  ex- 
scinding act"  of  the  General  Assembly  of  1861,  which  was  the  occasion  of 
the  secession  of  the  Southern  Presbyterians.  The  historian  of  the  Southern 
Presbyterians,  who  remarks  with  entire  complacency  that  the  "  victory  "  of 
1837  was  won  "only  by  virtue  of  an  almost  solid  South,"  seems  quite  un- 
conscious that  this  kind  of  victory  could  have  any  force  as  a  precedent  or  as 
an  estoppel  (Johnson,  "The  Southern  Presbyterians,"  pp.  335,  359).  But 
it  is  natural,  no  doubt,  that  exscinding  acts  should  look  diflferent  when 
examined  from  the  muzzle  instead  of  from  the  breech. 


298  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvii. 

nary  in  Connecticut  to  off  set  what  were  deemed  the  "dan- 
gerous tendencies  "  of  the  New  Haven  theology.  After 
a  few  years  the  party  lines  had  faded  out  and  the  two 
seminaries  were  good  neighbors. 

The  unlikeliest  place  in  all  American  Christendom  for 
a  partisan  controversy  and  a  schism  would  have  seemed  to 
be  the  Unitarian  denomination  in  and  about  Boston. 
Beginning  with  the  refusal  not  only  of  any  imposed  stand- 
ard of  belief,  but  of  any  statement  of  common  opinions, 
and  with  unlimited  freedom  of  opinion  in  every  direction, 
unless,  perhaps,  in  the  direction  of  orthodoxy,  it  was  not 
eas}^  to  see  how  a  splitting  wedge  could  be  started  in  it. 
But  the  infection  of  the  time  was  not  to  be  resisted.  Even 
Unitarianism  must  have  its  heresies  and  heresiarchs  to  deal 
with.  No  sooner  did  the  pressure  of  outside  attack  abate 
than  antagonisms  began  pretty  sharply  to  declare  them- 
selves. In  1832  Mr.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  pastor  of  the 
Second  Church  in  Boston,  proposed  to  the  church  to  aban- 
don or  radically  change  the  observance  of  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per. When  the  church  demurred  at  this  extraordinary 
demand  he  resigned  his  office,  firing  off  an  elaborate 
argument  against  the  usage  of  the  church  by  way  of  a 
parting  salute.  Without  any  formal  demission  of  the 
ministry,  he  retired  to  his  literary  seclusion  at  Concord, 
from  which  he  brought  forth  in  books  and  lectures  the 
oracular  utterances  which  caught  more  and  more  the  ear 
of  a  wide  public,  and  in  which,  in  casual-seeming  paren- 
theses and  obiter  dicta,  Christianity  and  all  practical  re- 
ligion were  condemned  by  sly  innuendo  and  half-respect- 
ful allusion  by  which  he  might  "  without  sneering  teach 
the  rest  to  sneer."  In  1838  he  was  still  so  far  recognized 
in  the  ministry  as  to  be  invited  to  address  the  graduating 
class  of  the  Harvard  Divinity  School.  The  blank  panthe- 
ism which  he  then  enunciated  called  forth  from  Professor 


EMERSON  AND   PARKER.  299 

Henry  Ware,  Jr.,  a  sermon  in  the  college  chapel  on  the 
personality  of  God,  which  he  sent  with  a  friendly  note  to 
Mr.  Emerson.  The  gay  and  Skimpolesque  reply  of  the 
sage  is  an  illustration  of  that  flippancy  with  which  he  chose 
to  toy  in  a  literary  way  with  momentous  questions,  and 
which  was  so  exasperating  to  the  earnest  men  of  positive 
religious  convictions  with  whom  he  had 'been  associated  in 
the  Christian  ministry. 

"  It  strikes  me  very  oddly  that  good  and  wise  men  at 
Cambridge  should  think  of  raising  me  into  an  object  of 
criticism.  I  have  always  been,  from  my  incapacity  of 
methodical  writing,  '  a  chartered  libertine,'  free  to  worship 
and  free  to  rail,  lucky  when  I  could  make  myself  under- 
stood, but  never  esteemed  near  enough  to  the  institutions 
and  mind  of  society  to  deserve  the  notice  of  masters  of 
literature  and  religion.  ...  I  could  not  possibly  give  you 
one  of  the  '  arguments '  you  so  cruelly  hint  at  on  which 
any  doctrine  of  mine  stands,  for  I  do  not  know  what 
arguments  mean  in  reference  to  any  expression  of  thought. 
I  delight  in  telling  what  I  think,  but  if  you  ask  me  how  I 
dare  say  so,  or  why  it  is  so,  I  am  the  most  helpless  of 
mortal  men,  I  do  not  even  see  that  either  of  these  ques- 
tions admits  of  an  answer.  So  that  in  the  present  droll 
posture  of  my  affairs,  when  I  see  myself  suddenly  raised 
into  the  importance  of  a  heretic,  I  am  very  uneasy  when 
I  advert  to  the  supposed  duties  of  such  a  personage  who 
is  to  make  good  his  thesis  against  all  comers.  I  certainly 
shall  do  no  such  thing." 

The  issue  was  joined  and  the  controversy  began. 
Professor  Andrews  Norton  in  a  pamphlet  denounced  "  the 
latest  form  of  infidelity,"  and  the  Rev.  George  Ripley 
replied  in  a  volume,  to  which  Professor  Norton  issued  a 
rejoinder.  But  there  was  not  substance  enough  of  reli- 
gious dogma  and  sentiment  in  the  transcendentalist  phi- 


300  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvii. 

losophers  to  give  them  any  permanent  standing  in  the 
church.  They  went  into  various  walks  of  secular  litera- 
ture, and  have  powerfully  influenced  the  course  of  opin- 
ions ;  but  they  came  to  be  no  longer  recognizable  as  a 
religious  or  theological  party. 

Among  the  minor  combatants  in  the  conflict  between 
the  Unitarians  and  the  pantheists  was  a  young  man  whose 
name  was  destined  to  become  conspicuous,  not  within  the 
Unitarian  fellowship,  but  on  the  outskirts  of  it.  Theodore 
Parker  was  a  man  of  a  diff"erent  type  from  the  men  about 
him  of  either  party.  The  son  of  a  mechanic,  he  fought 
his  way  through  difficulties  to  a  liberal  education,  and  was 
thirty  years  old  before  his  very  great  abilities  attracted 
general  attention.  A  greedy  gormandizer  of  books  in 
many  languages,  he  had  little  of  the  dainty  scholarship  so 
much  prized  at  the  neighboring  university.  But  the 
results  of  his  vast  reading  were  stored  in  a  quick  and 
tenacious  memory  as  ready  rhetorical  material  wherewith 
to  convince  or  astonish.  Paradox  was  a  passion  with  him, 
that  was  stimulated  by  complaints,  and  even  by  depreca- 
tions, to  the  point  of  irreverence.  He  liked  to  "  make 
people's  flesh  crawl."  Even  in  his  advocacy  of  social  and 
public  reforms,  which  was  strenuous  and  sincere,  he  de- 
lighted so  to  urge  his  cause  as  to  inflame  prejudice  and 
opposition  against  it.  With  this  temper  it  is  not  strange 
that  when  he  came  to  enunciate  his  departure  from  some 
of  the  accepted  tenets  of  his  brethren,  who  were  habitually 
reverent  in  their  discipleship  toward  Jesus  Christ,  he  should 
do  this  in  a  way  to  offend  and  shock.  The  immediate 
reaction  of  the  Unitarian  clergy  from  the  statements  of 
his  sermon,  in  1841,  on  "The  Transient  and  the  Perma- 
nent in  Christianity,"  in  which  the  supernatural  was  boldly 
discarded  from  his  belief,  was  so  general  and  so  earnest  as 
to  give  occasion  to  Channing's  exclamation,   "  Now  we 


METHODIST  DIVISION.  30 1 

have  a  Unitarian  orthodoxy!"  Channing  did  not  Hve  to 
see  the  characteristic  tenets  of  the  heresiarch  to  whom  he 
hesitated  to  give  the  name  of  Christian  not  only,  widely 
accepted  in  the  Unitarian  churches,  but  some  of  them 
freely  discussed  as  open  questions  among  some  orthodox 
scholars. 

Two  very  great  events  in  this  period  of  schism  may  be 
dispatched  with  a  brevity  out  of  all  proportion  to  their 
importance,  on  account  of  the  simplicity  of  motive  and 
action  by  which  they  are  characterized. 

In  the  year  1844  the  slavery  agitation  in  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  culminated,  not  in  the  rupture  of  the 
church,  but  in  the  well-considered,  dehberate  division  of 
it  between  North  and  South.  The  history  of  the  slavery 
question  among  the  Methodists  was  a  typical  one.  From 
the  beginning  the  Methodist  Society  had  been  committed 
by  its  founder  and  his  early  successors  to  the  strictest  (not 
the  strongest)  position  on  this  question.  Not  only  was 
the  system  of  slavery  denounced  as  iniquitous,  but  the 
attempt  was  made  to  enforce  the  rigid  rule  that  persons 
involved  under  this  system  in  the  relation  of  master  to 
slave  should  be  excluded  from  the  ministry,  if  not  from 
the  communion.  But  the  enforcement  of  this  rule  was 
found  to  be  not  only  difficult,  but  wrong,  and  difficult 
simply  because  it  was  wrong.  Then  followed  that  illogical 
confusion  of  ideas  studiously  fostered  by  zealots  at  either 
extreme :  If  the  slave-holder  may  be  in  some  circum- 
stances a  faithful  Christian  disciple,  fulfilling  in  righteous- 
ness and  love  a  Christian  duty,  then  slavery  is  right ;  if 
slavery  is  wrong,  then  every  slave-holder  is  a  manstealer, 
and  should  be  excommunicated  as  such  without  asking 
any  further  questions.  Two  statements  more  palpably 
illogical  were  never  put  forth  for  the  darkening  of  coun- 


302  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvii. 

sel.  But  each  extreme  was  eager  to  sustain  the  unreason 
of  the  opposite  extreme  as  the  only  alternative  of  its  own 
unreason,  and  so,  what  with  contrary  gusts  from  North 
and  South,  they  fell  into  a  place  where  two  seas  met  and 
ran  the  ship  aground.  The  attempts  made  from  1836  to 
1840,  by  stretching  to  the  utmost  the  authority  of  the 
General  Conference  and  the  bishops,  for  the  suppression 
of  "  modern  abolitionism  "  in  the  church  (without  saying 
what  they  meant  by  the  phrase)  had  their  natural  effect : 
the  antislavery  sentiment  in  the  church  organized  and 
uttered  itself  more  vigorously  and  more  extravagantly 
than  ever  on  the  basis,  "  All  slave-holding  is  sin ;  no  fel- 
lowship with  slave-holders."  In  1843  ^i^  antislavery 
secession  took  place,  which  drew  after  it  a  following  of 
six  thousand,  increased  in  a  few  months  to  fifteen  thou- 
sand. The  paradoxical  result  of  this  movement  is  not 
without  many  parallels  in  church  history  :  After  the  draw- 
ing off  of  fifteen  thousand  of  the  most  zealous  antislavery 
men  in  the  church,  the  antislavery  party  in  the  church  was 
vastly  stronger,  even  in  numbers,  than  it  had  been  before. 
The  General  Conference  of  1836  had  pronounced  itself, 
without  a  dissenting  vote,  to  be  "  decidedly  opposed  to 
modern  abolitionism."  The  General  Conference  of  1844, 
on  the  first  test  vote  on  the  question  of  excluding  from 
the  ministry  one  who  had  become  a  slave-holder  through 
marriage,  revealed  a  majority  of  one  hundred  and  seven- 
teen to  fifty-six  in  favor  of  the  most  rigorous  antislavery 
discipline.  The  graver  question  upon  the  case  of  Bishop 
Andrew,  who  was  in  the  like  condemnation,  could  not  be 
decided  otherwise.  The  form  of  the  Conference's  action 
in  this  case  was  studiously  inoffensive.  It  imputed  no 
wrong  and  proposed  no  censure,  but,  simply  on  the  ground 
that  the  circumstances  would  embarrass  him  in  the  exercise 
of  his  office,  declared  it  as  "  the  sense  of  this  General 


BAPTIST  DIVISION.  303 

Conference  that  he  desist  from  the  exercise  of  this  office 
so  long  as  tliis  impediment  remains."  The  issue  could 
not  have  been  simpler  and  clearer.  The  Conference  was 
warned  that  the  passage  of  the  resolution-  would  be  fol- 
lowed by  the  secession  of  the  South.  The  debate  was 
long,  earnest,  and  tender.  At  the  end  of  it  the  resolution 
was  passed,  one  hundred  and  eleven  to  sixty-nine.  At 
once  notice  was  given  of  the  intended  secession.  Com- 
missioners were  appointed  from  both  parties  to  adjust  the 
conditions  of  it,  and  in  the  next  year  (1845)  was  organized 
the  "Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South." 

Under  the  fierce  tyranny  then  dominant  at  the  South 
the  southern  Baptists  might  not  fall  behind  their  Metho- 
dist neighbors  in  zeal  for  slavery.  This  time  it  was  the 
South  that  forced  the  issue.  The  Alabama  Baptist 
Convention,  without  waiting  for  a  concrete  case,  demanded 
of  the  national  missionary  boards  "the  distinct,  explicit 
avowal  that  slave-holders  are  eligible  and  entitled  equally 
with  non-slave-holders  to  all  the  privileges  and  immunities 
of  their  several  unions."  The  answer  of  the  Foreign  Mis- 
sion Board  was  perfectly  kind,  but,  on  the  main  point, 
perfectly  unequivocal :  "  We  can  never  be  a  party  to  any 
arrangement  which  would  imply  approbation  of  slavery." 
The  result  had  been  foreseen.  The  great  denomination 
was  divided  between  North  and  South.  The  Southern 
Baptist  Convention  was  organized  in  May,  1845,  and 
began  its  home  and  foreign  missionary  work  without 
delay. 

This  dark  chapter  of  our  story  is  not  without  its  brighter 
aspects,  (i)  Amid  the  inevitable  asperities  attendant  on 
such  debate  and  division  there  were  many  and  beautiful 
manifestations  of  brotherly  love  between  the  separated 
parties.  (2)  These  strifes  fell  out  to  the  furtherance  of  the 
gospel.      Emulations,  indeed,  are  not  among  the  works  of 


304  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvii. 

the  Spirit.  In  the  strenuous  labors  of  the  two  divided 
denominations,  greatly  exceeding  what  had  gone  before, 
it  is  plain  that  sometimes  Christ  was  preached  of  envy  and 
strife.  Nevertheless  Christ  was  preached,  with  great  and 
salutary  results ;  and  therein  do  we  rejoice,  yea,  and  will 
rejoice. 

Two  important  orders  in  the  American  church,  which 
for  a  time  had  almost  faded  out  from  our  field  of  vision, 
come  back,  from  about  this  epoch  of  debate  and  division, 
into  continually  growing  conspicuousness  and  strength. 
Neither  of  them  was  implicated  in  that  great  debate  in- 
volving the  fundamental  principles  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven, — the  principles  of  righteousness  and  love  to  men, 
— by  which  other  parts  of  the  church  had  been  agitated 
and  sometimes  divided.  Whether  to  their  discredit  or  to 
their  honor,  it  is  part  of  history  that  neither  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  nor  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  took 
any  important  part,  either  corporately  or  through  its  rep- 
resentative men,  in  the  agonizing  struggle  of  the  Ameri- 
can church  to  maintain  justice  and  humanity  in  public  law 
and  poHcy.  But  standing  thus  aloof  from  the  great  ethi- 
cal questions  that  agitated  the  conscience  of  the  nation, 
they  were  both  of  them  disturbed  by  controversies  inter- 
nal or  external,  which  demand  mention  at  least  in  this 
chapter. 

The  beginning  of  the  resuscitation  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  from  the  dead-and-alive  condition  in 
which  it  had  so  long  been  languishing  is  dated  from  the 
year  i8ii.^  This  year  was  marked  by  the  accession  to 
the  episcopate  of  two  eminent  men,  representing  two 
strongly  divergent  parties  in  that  church — Bishop  Gris- 
wold,  of  Massachusetts,  Evangelical,  and  Bishop  Hobart,  of 

1  Tiffany,  chap.  xv. 


I 


EPISCOPAL   CHURCH  REVIVED.  305 

New  York,  High-churchman.  A  quorum  of  three  bishops 
having  been  gotten  together,  not  without  great  difficulty, 
the  two  were  consecrated  in  Trinity  Church,  New  York, 
May  29,  181 1. 

The  time  was  opportune  and  the  conjuncture  of  circum- 
stances singularly  favorable.  The  stigma  of  Toryism, 
which  had  marked  the  church  from  long  before  the  War 
of  Independence,  was  now  more  than  erased.  In  New 
England  the  Episcopal  Church  was  of  necessity  committed 
to  that  political  party  which  favored  the  abolition  of  the 
privileges  of  the  standing  order;  and  this  was  the  anti- 
English  party,  which,  under  the  lead  of  Jefferson,  was  fast 
forcing  the  country  into  war  with  England.  The  Episco- 
palians were  now  in  a  position  to  retort  the  charge  of  dis- 
loyalty under  which  they  had  not  unjustly  suffered.  At 
the  same  time  their  church  lost  nothing  of  the  social  pres- 
tige incidental  to  its  relation  to  the  established  Church  of 
England.  Politicians  of  the  Democratic  party,  including 
some  men  of  well-deserved  credit  and  influence,  naturally 
attached  themselves  to  a  religious  party  having  many 
points  of  congeniality.^ 

In  another  sense,  also,  the  time  was  opportune  for  an 
advance  of  the  Episcopal  Church.  In  the  person  of  Bishop 
Hobart  it  had  now  a  bold,  energetic,  and  able  represent- 
ative of  principles  hitherto  not  much  in  favor  in  America 
— the  thoroughgoing  High-church  principles  of  Arch- 
bishop Laud.      Before  this  time  the  Episcopal  Church  had 

1  The  intense  antagonism  of  the  New  England  Congregationalists  to  Jeff- 
erson and  his  party  as  representing  French  infidelity  and  Jacobinism  admits 
of  many  striking  illustrations.  The  sermon  of  Nathanael  Emmons  on 
"Jeroboam  the  son  of  Nel)at,  who  made  Israel  to  sin  "  is  characterized  by 
Professor  Park  as  "a  curiosity  in  politico-homiletical  literature."  At  this 
distance  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  the  course  of  this  clergy  was  far  more 
honorable  to  its  boldness  and  independence  than  to  its  discretion  and  sense 
of  fitness.  Both  its  virtues  and  its  faults  had  a  tendency  to  strengthen  an 
opposing  party. 


3o6  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvii. 

had  very  little  to  contribute  by  way  of  enriching  the  di- 
versity of  the  American  sects.  It  was  simply  the  feeblest 
of  the  communions  bearing  the  common  family  traits  of 
the  Great  Awakening,  with  the  not  unimportant  differentia 
of  its  settled  ritual  of  worship  and  its  traditions  of  order 
and  decorum.  But  when  Bishop  Hobart  put  the  trumpet 
to  his  lips  and  prepared  himself  to  sound,  the  public  heard 
a  very  different  note,  and  no  uncertain  one.  The  church 
(meaning  his  own  fragment  of  the  church)  the  one  chan- 
nel of  saving  grace ;  the  vehicles  of  that  grace,  the  sacra- 
ments, valid  only  when  ministered  by  a  priesthood  with 
the  right  pedigree  of  ordination ;  submission  to  the  con- 
stituted authorities  of  the  church  absolutely  unlimited, 
except  by  clear  divine  requirements ;  abstinence  from 
prayer-meetings ;  firm  opposition  to  revivals  of  religion ; 
refusal  of  all  cooperation  with  Christians  outside  of  his 
own  sect  in  endeavors  for  the  general  advancement  of  re- 
ligion— such  were  some  of  the  principles  and  duties 
inculcated  by  this  bishop  of  the  new  era  as  of  binding 
force. ^  The  courage  of  this  attitude  was  splendid  and 
captivating.  It  require's,  even  at  the  present  time,  not  a 
little  force  of  conviction  to  sustain  one  in  publicly  enunci- 
ating such  views ;  but  at  the  time  of  the  accession  of 
Hobart,  when  the  Episcopal  Church  was  just  beginning  to 
Hft  up  its  head  out  of  the  dust  of  despair,  it  needed  the 
heroism  of  a  martyr.  It  was  not  only  the  vast  multitude 
of  American  Christians  outside  of  the  Episcopal  Church, 
comprising  almost  all  the  learning,  the  evangelistic  zeal, 
and  the  charitable  activity  and  self-denial  of  the  Ameri- 
can church  of  that  time,  that  heard  these  unwonted  pre- 
tensions with  indignation  or  with  ridicule ;  in  the  Episcopal 
Church  itself  they  were  disclaimed,  scouted,  and  denounced 

1  Hobart's  sermon  at  the  consecration  of  Right  Rev.  H.  U.  Onderdonk, 
Philadelphia,  1827. 


EPISCOPAIJAX  PARTIES.  307 

with  (if  possible)  greater  indignation  still.  But  the  new 
party  had  elements  of  growth  for  which  its  adversaries  did 
not  sufficiently  reckon.  The  experience  of  other  orders  in 
the  church  confirms  this  principle  :  that  steady  persistence 
and  iteration  in  assuring  any  body  of  believers  that  they 
are  in  some  special  sense  the  favorites  of  Heaven,  and  in 
assuring  any  body  of  clergy  that  they  are  endued  from  on 
high  with  some  special  and  exceptional  powers,  will  by 
and  by  make  an  impression  on  the  mind.  The  flattering 
assurance  may  be  coyly  waived  aside ;  it  may  even  be  in- 
dignantly repelled ;  but  in  the  long  run  there  will  be  a 
growing  number  of  the  brethren  who  become  convinced 
that  there  is  something  in  it.  It  was  in  harmony  with 
human  nature  that  the  party  of  high  pretensions  to  dis- 
tinguished privileges  for  the  church  and  prerogatives  for 
the  "  priesthood  "  should  in  a  few  years  become  a  formi- 
dable contestant  for  the  control  of  the  denomination.  The 
controversy  between  the  two  parties  rose  to  its  height  of 
exacerbation  during  the  prevalence  of  that  strange  epi- 
demic of  controversy  which  ran  simultaneously  through 
so  many  of  the  great  religious  organizations  of  the  coun- 
try at  once.  No  denomination  had  it  in  a  more  malignant 
form  than  the  Episcopalians.  The  war  of  pamphlets  and 
newspapers  was  fierce!}'  waged,  and  the  election  of  bish- 
ops sometimes  became  a  bitter  party  contest,  with  the 
unpleasant  incidents  of  such  competitions.  In  the  midst 
of  the  controversy  at  home  the  publication  of  the  Oxford 
Tracts  added  new  asperity  to  it.  A  distressing  episode  of 
the  controversy  was  the  arraignment  of  no  less  than  four 
of  the  twenty  bishops  on  charges  affecting  their  personal 
character.  In  the  morbid  condition  of  the  body  ecclesias- 
tic every  such  hurt  festered.  The  highest  febrile  temper- 
ature was  reached  when,  at  an  ordination  in  1843,  two  of 
the  leading  presbyters  in  the  diocese  of  New  York  rose  in 


3o8  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvii. 

their  places,  and,  reading  each  one  his  solemn  protest 
against  the  ordaining  of  one  of  the  candidates  on  the 
ground  of  his  Romanizing  opinions,  left  the  church. 

The  result  of  the  long  conflict  was  not  immediately 
apparent.  It  was  not  only  that  "high"  opinions,  even 
the  liighest  of  the  Tractarian  school,  were  to  be  tolerated 
within  the  church,  but  that  the  High- church  party  was  to 
be  the  dominant  party.  The  Episcopal  Church  was  to 
stand  before  the  public  as  representing,  not  that  which  it 
held  in  common  with  the  other  churches  of  the  country, 
but  that  which  was  most  distinctive.  From  this  time  forth 
the  "Evangelical"  party  continued  relatively  to  decline, 
down  to  the  time,  thirty  years  later,  when  it  was  repre- 
sented in  the  inconsiderable  secession  of  the  "  Reformed 
Episcopal  Church."  The  combination  of  circumstances 
and  influences  by  which  this  party  supremacy  was  brought 
about  is  an  interesting  study,  for  which,  however,  there  is 
no  room  in  this  brief  compendium  of  history. 

A  more  important  fact  is  this :  that  in  spite  of  these 
agitating  internal  strifes,  and  even  by  reason  of  them,  the 
growth  of  the  denomination  was  wonderfully  rapid  and 
strong.  No  fact  in  the  external  history  of  the  American 
church  at  this  period  is  more  imposing  than  this  growth  of 
the  Episcopal  Church  from  nothing  to  a  really  command- 
ing stature.  It  is  easy  to  enumerate  minor  influences 
tending  to  this  result,  some  of  which  are  not  of  high 
spiritual  dignity ;  but  these  must  not  be  overestimated. 
The  nature  of  this  growth,  as  well  as  the  numerical  amount 
of  it,  requires  to  be  considered.  This  strongly  distin- 
guished order  in  the  American  church  has  been  aggran- 
dized, not,  to  any  great  degree,  by  immigration,  nor  by 
conquest  from  the  ranks  of  the  irreligious,  but  by  a  con- 
tinual stream  of  accessions  both  to  its  laity  and  to  its  clergy 
from  other  sects  of  the  church.     These  accessions  have  of 


THE  niGII-CHURCH  DOMIXANT.  309 

course  been  variable  in  quality,  but  they  have  included 
many  such  as  no  denomination  could  afford  to  lose,  and 
such  as  any  would  be  proud  to  receive.  Without  judging 
of  individual  cases,  it  is  natural  and  reasonable  to  explain 
so  considerable  a  current  setting  so  steadily  for  two  gen- 
erations toward  the  Episcopal  Church  as  being  attracted 
by  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  that  church.  Foremost 
among  these  we  may  reckon  the  study  of  the  dignity  and 
beauty  of  public  worship,  and  the  tradition  and  use  of 
forms  of  devotion  of  singular  excellence  and  value.  A 
tendency  to  revert  to  the  ancient  Calvinist  doctrine  of  the 
sacraments  has  prepossessed  some  in  favor  of  that  sect  in 
which  the  old  Calvinism  is  still  cherished.  Some  have  re- 
joiced to  find  a  door  of  access  to  the  communion  of  the 
church  not  beset  with  revivalist  exactions  of  examination 
and  scrutiny  of  the  sacred  interior  experiences  of  the  soul. 
Some  have  reacted  from  an  excessive  or  inquisitive  or 
arbitrary  church  discipline,  toward  a  default  of  discipline. 
Some,  worthily  weary  of  sectarian  division  and  of  the 
"  evangelical  "  doctrine  that  schism  is  the  normal  condition 
of  the  church  of  Christ,  have  found  real  comfort  in  taking 
refuge  in  a  sect  in  which,  closing  their  eyes,  they  can  say, 
"There  are  no  schisms  in  the  church;  the  church  is  one 
and  undivided,  and  we  are  it."  These  and  other  like 
considerations,  mingled  in  varying  proportions,  have  been 
honorable  motives  impelling  toward  the  Episcopal  denom- 
ination ;  and  few  that  have  felt  the  force  of  them  have  felt 
constrained  stubbornly  to  resist  the  gentle  assurances 
ofTered  by  the  "  apostolic  succession  "  theory  of  a  superior 
authority  and  prerogative  with  which  they  had  become 
invested.  The  numerous  accessions  to  the  Episcopal 
Church  from  other  communions  have,  of  course,  been  in 
large  part  reinforcements  to  the  already  dominant  party. 
In  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  of  the  United  States, 


3IO  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvii. 

during  this  stormy  period,  there  was  by  no  means  a  per- 
fect calm.  The  ineradicable  feeling  of  the  American  citi- 
zen— however  recent  his  naturalization — that  he  has  a 
right  to  do  what  he  will  with  his  own,  had  kept  asserting 
itself  in  that  plausible  but  untenable  claim  of  the  laity  to 
manage  the  church  property  acquired  by  their  own  contri- 
butions, which  is  known  to  Catholic  writers  as  "  trustee- 
ism."  Through  the  whole  breadth  of  the  country,  from 
Buflfalo  to  New  Orleans,  sharp  conflicts  over  this  question 
between  clergy  and  laity  had  continued  to  vex  the  peace 
of  the  church,  and  the  victory  of  the  clergy  had  not  been 
unvarying  and  complete.  When,  in  1837,  Bishop  John 
Hughes  took  the  reins  of  spiritual  power  in  New  York,  he 
resolved  to  try  conclusions  with  the  trustees  who  attempted 
to  overrule  his  authority  in  his  own  cathedral.  Sharply 
threatening  to  put  the  church  under  interdict,  if  necessary, 
he  brought  the  recalcitrants  to  terms  at  last  by  a  less 
formidable  process.  He  appealed  to  the  congregation  to 
withhold  all  further  contributions  from  the  trustees.  The 
appeal,  for  conscience'  sake,  to  refrain  from  giving  has  al- 
ways a  double  hope  of  success.  And  the  bishop  succeeded 
in  ousting  the  trustees,  at  the  serious  risk  of  teaching  the 
people  a  trick  which  has  since  been  found  equally  eflfective 
when  applied  on  the  opposite  side  of  a  dispute  between 
clergyman  and  congregation.  In  Philadelphia  the  long 
struggle  was  not  ended  without  the  actual  interdicting  of 
the  cathedral  of  St.  Mary's,  April,  183 1.  In  Buffalo,  so 
late  as  1847,  even  this  extreme  measure,  applied  to  the 
largest  congregation  in  the  newly  erected  diocese,  did  not 
at  once  enforce  submission. 

The  conflict  with  trusteeism  was  only  one  out  of  many 
conflicts  which  gave  abundant  exercise  to  the  administra- 
tive abilities  of  the  American  bishops.  The  mutual  jeal- 
ousies of  the  various  nationalities  and  races  among  the 


CONFLICTS  IN  CATHOLIC  CHURCH.  311 

laity,  and  of  the  various  sects  of  the  regular  clergy,  men- 
aced, and  have  not  wholly  ceased  to  menace,  the  harmony 
of  the  church,  if  not  its  unity. 

One  disturbing  element  by  which  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  some  European  countries  has  been  sorely  vexed 
makes  no  considerable  figure  in  the  corresponding  history 
in  America.  There  has  never  been  here  any  "  Liberal 
Catholic  "  party.  The  fact  stands  in  analogy  with  many 
like  facts.  Visitors  to  America  from  the  established 
churches  of  England  or  Scotland  or  Germany  have  often 
been  surprised  to  find  the  temper  of  the  old-country 
church  so  much  broader  and  less  rigid  than  that  of  the 
daughter  church  in  the  new  and  free  republic.  The  rea- 
son is  less  recondite  than  might  be  supposed.  In  the  old 
countries  there  are  retained  in  connection  with  the  state- 
church,  by  constraint  of  law  or  of  powerful  social  or  family 
influences,  many  whose  adhesion  to  its  distinctive  tenets 
and  rules  is  slight  and  superficial.  It  is  out  of  such  mate- 
rial that  the  liberal  church  party  grows.  In  the  migration 
it  is  not  that  the  liberal  churchman  becomes  more  strict, 
but  that,  being  released  from  outside  pressure,  he  becomes 
less  of  a  churchman.  He  easily  draws  off  from  his  heredi- 
tary communion  and  joins  himself  to  some  other,  or  to 
none  at  all.  This  process  of  evaporation  leaves  behind  it 
a  strong  residuum  in  which  all  characteristic  elements  are 
held  as  in  a  saturated  solution. 

A  further  security  of  the  American  Catholic  Church 
against  the  growth  of  any  "  Liberal  Catholic  "  party  like 
those  of  continental  Europe  is  the  absolutist  organization 
of  the  hierarchy  under  the  personal  government  of  the 
pope.  In  these  last  few  centuries  great  progress  has  been 
made  by  the  Roman  see  in  extinguishing  the  ancient  tra- 
ditions of  local  or  national  independence  in  the  election  of 
bishops.     Nevertheless  in  Catholic  Europe  important  relics 


312  AMERICAN  CHRISTIAKITY.  [Chap.  xvii. 

of  this  independence  give  an  effective  check  to  the  abso- 
lute power  of  Rome.  In  America  no  trace  of  this  historic 
independence  has  ever  existed.  The  power  of  appointing 
and  removing  bishops  is  held  absolutely  and  exclusively  by 
the  pope  and  exercised  through  the  Congregation  of  the 
Propaganda.  The  power  of  ordaining  and  assigning 
priests  is  held  by  the  bishop,  who  also  holds  or  controls 
the  title  to  the  church  property  in  his  diocese.  The  secu- 
rity against  partisan  division  within  the  church  is  as  com- 
plete as  it  can  be  made  without  gravely  increasing  the 
risks  of  alienating  additional  multitudes  from  the  fellow- 
ship of  the  church.' 


During  the  whole  of  this  dreary  decade  there  were 
"  fightings  without "  as  well  as  within  for  the  Catholic 
Church  in  the  United  States.  Its  great  and  sudden 
growth  solely  by  immigration  had  made  it  distinctively 
a  church  of  foreigners,  and  chiefly  of  Irishmen.  The  con- 
ditions were  favorable  for  the  development  of  a  race  prej- 
udice aggravated  by  a  religious  antipathy.  It  was  a  good 
time  for  the  impostor,  the  fanatic,  and  the  demagogue  to 
get  in  their  work.  In  Boston,  in  1834,  the  report  that  a 
woman  was  detained  against  her  will  in  the  Ursuline  con- 
vent at  Charlestown,  near  Boston,  led  to  the  burning  of 
the  building  by  a  drunken  mob.  The  Titus  Gates  of  the 
American  no-popery  panic,  in  1836,  was  an  infamous 
woman  named  Maria  Monk,  whose  monstrous  stories  of 
secret  horrors  perpetrated  in  a  convent  in  Montreal,  in 

1  For  a  fuller  account  of  the  dissensions  in  the  Catholic  Church,  consult, 
by  index,  Bishop  O'Gorman's  "  History."  On  the  modern  organization  of 
the  episcopate  in  complete  dependence  on  the  Holy  See,  consult  the  learned 
article  on  "  Episcopal  Elections,"  by  Dr.  Peries,  of  the  Cathohc  University 
at  Washington,  in  the  "  American  Catholic  Quarterly  Review  "  ftir  January, 
1896;  also  the  remarks  of  Archbishop  Kenrick,  of  St.  Louis,  in  his  " Cotuto 
in  Coticilio  Vaticano  Habenda  at  non  Habita,"  in  "An  Inside  View  of  the 
Vatican  Council,"  by  L.  W.  Bacon,  pp.  6l,  I2i. 


''FIGHTIXCS  WITHOUT''  FOR  CATHOLIC  CHURCH.     313 

which  she  claimed  to  have  lived  as  a  nun,  were  published 
by  a  respectable  house  and  had  immense  currency.  A 
New  York  pastor  of  good  standing,  Dr.  Brownlee,  made 
himself  sponsor  for  her  character  and  her  stories  ;  and  when 
these  had  been  thoroughly  exposed,  by  Protestant  min- 
isters and  laymen,  for  the  shameless  frauds  that  they 
were,  there  were  plenty  of  zealots  to  sustain  her  still.  A 
"  Protestant  Society  "  was  organized  in  New  York,  and 
solicited  the  contributions  of  the  benevolent  and  pious  to 
promote  the  dissemination  of  raw-head-and-bloody-bones 
literature  on  the  horrors  of  popery.  The  enterprise  met 
with  reprobation  from  sober-minded  Protestants,  but  it 
was  not  without  its  influence  for  mischief.  The  presence 
of  a  great  foreign  vote,  easily  manipulated  and  cast  in 
block,  was  proving  a  copious  source  of  political  corruption. 
Large  concessions  of  privilege  or  of  public  property  to 
Catholic  institutions  were  reasonably  suspected  to  have 
been  made  in  consideration  of  clerical  services  in  partisan 
politics.^  The  conditions  provoked,  we  might  say  neces- 
sitated, a  political  reform  movement,  which  took  the  name 
and  character  of  "  Native  American."  In  Philadelphia,  a 
city  notorious  at  that  time  for  misgovernment  and  turbu- 
lence, an  orderly  "  American"  meeting  was  attacked  and 
broken  up  by  an  Irish  mob.  One  act  of  violence  led  to 
another,  the  excitement  increasing  from  day  to  day  ;  deadly 
shots  were  exchanged  in  the  streets,  houses  from  which 
balls  had  been  fired  into  the  crowd  were  set  in  flames, 
which  spread  to  other  houses,  churches  were  burned,  and 
the   whole    city   dominated    by   mobs    that   were    finally 

1  A  satirical  view  of  these  concessions,  in  the  vast  dimensions  which  they 
had  reached  twenty-five  years  later  in  the  city  and  county  of  New  York,  wss 
published  in  two  articles,  "  Our  Established  Church,"  and  "  The  Unestab- 
lished  Church,"  in  "Putnam's  Magazine"  for  July  and  December,  1869. 
The  articles  were  reissued  in  a  pamphlet,  ' '  with  an  explanatory  and  exculpa- 
tory preface,  and  sundry  notices  of  the  contemporary  press." 


314  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvii. 

suppressed  by  the  State  militia.  It  was  an  appropriate 
climax  to  the  ten  years  of  ecclesiastical  and  social 
turmoil.^ 

1  A  studiously  careful  account  of  the  Philadelphia  riots  of  1844  is  given 
in  the  "  New  Englander,"  vol.  ii.  (1844),  pp.  470,  624. 

This  account  of  the  schisms  of  the  period  is  of  course  not  complete.  The 
American  Missionary  Association,  since  distinguished  for  successful  labors 
chiefly  among  the  freedmen,  grew  out  of  dissatisfaction  felt  by  men  of  ad- 
vanced antislavery  views  with  the  position  of  the  "American  Board"  and  the 
American  Home  Missionary  Society  on  the  slavery  question.  The  organiza- 
tion of  it  was  matured  in  1846.  A  very  fruitful  schism  in  its  results  was  that 
which,  in  1835,  planted  a  cutting  from  Lane  Seminary  at  Cincinnati,  in  the 
virgin  soil  at  Oberlin,  Ohio.  The  beginning  thus  made  with  a  class  in  theol- 
ogy has  grown  into  a  noble  and  widely  beneficent  institution,  the  influence 
of  which  has  extended  to  the  ends  of  the  land  and  of  the  world. 

The  division  of  the  Society  of  Friends  into  the  two  societies  known  as 
Ilicksite  and  Orthodox  is  of  earlier  date— 1827-28. 

No  attempt  is  made  in  this  volume  to  chronicle  the  interminable  splittings 
and  reuuitings  of  the  Presbyterian  sects  of  Scottish  extraction.  A  curious 
diagram,  on  page  146  of  volume  xi.  of  the  present  series,  illustrates  the  sort 
of  task  which  such  a  chronicle  involves. 

An  illustration  of  the  way  in  which  the  extreme  defenders  of  slavery  and 
the  extreme  abolitionists  sustained  each  other  in  illogical  statements  (see 
above,  pp.  301,  302)  is  found  in  Dr.  Thornwell's  claim  (identical  with  Mr. 
Garrison's)  that  if  slavery  is  wrong,  then  all  slave-holders  ought  to  be  ex- 
communicated (vol.  vi.,  p.  157,  vote').  Dr.  Tliornwell  may  not  have  been 
the  "  mental  and  moral  giant "  that  he  appears  to  his  admirers  (see  Professor 
Johnson  in  vol.  xi.,  p.  355),  but  he  was  an  intelligent  and  able  man,  quite 
too  clear-headed  to  be  imposed  upon  by  a  palpable  "  ambiguous  middle,"  ex- 
cept for  his  excitement  in  the  heat  of  a  desperate  controversy  with  the  moral 
sense  of  all  Christendom. 


\ 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE    GREAT    IMMIGRATION. 

At  the  taking  of  the  first  census  of  the  United  States, 
in  I  790,  the  country  contained  a  population  of  about  four 
millions  in  its  territory  of  less  than  one  million  of  square 
miles. 

Sixty  years  later,  at  the  census  of  1850,  it  contained  a 
population  of  more  than  twenty-three  millions  in  its  terri- 
tory of  about  three  millions  of  square  miles. 

The  vast  expansion  of  territory  to  more  than  threefold 
the  great  original  domain  of  the  United  States  had  been 
made  by  honorable  purchase  or  less  honorable  conquest. 
It  had  not  added  largely  to  the  population  of  the  nation ; 
the  new  acquisitions  were  mainly  of  unoccupied  land. 
The  increase  of  the  population,  down  to  about  1845,  was 
chiefly  the  natural  increase  of  a  hardy  and  prolific  stock 
under  conditions  in  the  highest  degree  favorable  to  such 
increase.  Up  to  the  year  1 820  the  recent  immigration  had 
been  inconsiderable.  In  the  ten  years  1820-29  the  annual 
arrival  of  immigrants  was  nine  thousand.  In  the  next 
decade,  1830-39,  the  annual  arrival  was  nearly  thirty-five 
thousand,  or  a  hundred  a  day.  For  forty  years  the 
total  immigration  from  all  quarters  was  much  less  than  a 
half- million.  In  the  course  of  the  next  three  decades, 
from  1840  to  1869,  there  arrived  in  the  United  States  from 
315 


3l6  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chaf.  xviii. 

the  various  countries  of  Europe  five  and  a  half  millions  of 
people.  It  was  more  than  the  entire  population  of  the 
country  at  the  time  of  the  first  census;  — 

A  multitude  like  which  the  populous  North 
Poured  never  from  her  frozen  loins  to  pass 
Rhene  or  the  Danaw,  when  her  barbarous  sons 
Came  like  a  deluge  on  the  South  and  spread 
Beneath  Gibraltar  to  the  Libyan  sands. 

Under  the  pressure  of  a  less  copious  flood  of  incursion  the 
greatest  empire  in  all  history,  strongest  in  arts  and  polity 
as  well  as  arms,  had  perished  utterly.  If  Rome,  with  her 
population  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  millions,  her  genius 
for  war  and  government,  and  her  long-compacted  civiliza- 
tion, succumbed  under  a  less  sudden  rush  of  invasion,  what 
hope  was  there  for  the  young  American  Republic,  with  its 
scanty  population  and  its  new  and  untried  institutions?^ 

An  impressive  providential  combination  of  causes  de- 
termined this  great  historic  movement  of  population  at  this 
time.  It  was  effected  by  attractions  in  front  of  the  emi- 
grant, reinforced  by  impulses  from  behind.  The  conclu- 
sion of  the  peace  of  1815  was  followed  by  the  beginning 
of  an  era  of  great  public  works,  one  of  the  first  of  which 
was  the  digging  of  the  Erie  Canal.  This  sort  of  enterprise 
makes  an  immediate  demand  for  large  forces  of  unskilled 
laborers ;  and  in  both  hemispheres  it  has  been  observed  to 
occasion  movements  of  population  out  of  Catholic  countries 

1  For  condensed  statistics  of  American  immigration,  see  "Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,"  gth  ed.,  s.  vv.  "  Emigration"  and  "  United  States."  For  the 
facts  concerning  the  Roman  Empire  one  naturally  has  recourse  to  Gibbon. 
From  the  indications  there  given  we  do  not  get  the  impression  that  in  the 
three  centuries  of  the  struggle  of  the  empire  against  the  barbarians  there  was 
ever  such  a  thirty  years'  flood  of  invasion  as  the  immigration  into  the  United 
States  from  1840  to  1869.  The  entrance  into  the  Roman  Empire  tvas  indeed 
largely  in  the  form  of  armed  invasion ;  but  the  most  destructive  influence  of 
the  barbarians  was  when  they  were  admitted  as  friends  and  naturalized  as 
citizens.     See  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  vol.  xx.,  pp.  779,  780. 


CAUSES   OF  MIC  RATION.  317 

into  Protestant  countries.  The  westward  current  of  the 
indigenous  population  created  a  vacuum  in  the  seaboard 
States,  and  a  demand  for  labor  that  was  soon  felt  in  the 
labor-markets  of  the  Old  World.  A  liberal  homestead 
policy  on  the  part  of  the  national  government,  and  natu- 
ralization laws  that  were  more  than  liberal,  agencies  for 
the  encouragement  of  settlers  organized  by  individual 
States  and  by  railroad  corporations  and  other  great  landed 
proprietors,  and  the  eager  competition  of  steamship  com- 
panies drumming  for  steerage  passengers  in  all  parts  of 
Europe — all  these  cooperated  with  the  growing  facility 
and  cheapness  of  steam  transportation  to  swell  the  current 
of  migration.  The  discovery  of  gold  in  California  quick- 
ened the  flow  of  it. 

As  if  it  had  been  the  divine  purpose  not  only  to  draw 
forth,  but  to  drive  forth,  the  populations  of  the  Old  World 
to  make  their  homes  in  the  New,  there  was  added  to  all 
these  causes  conducive  to  migration  the  Irish  famine  of 
1846-47,  and  the  futile  revolutions  of  1848,  with  the 
tyrannical  reactions  which  followed  them.  But  the  great 
stimulus  to  migration  was  the  success  and  prosperity  that 
attended  it.  It  was  "  success  that  succeeded."  The  great 
emigration  agent  was  the  letter  written  to  his  old  home 
by  the  new  settler,  in  multitudes  of  cases  inclosing  funds  to 
pay  the  passage  of  friends  whom  he  had  left  behind  him. 

The  great  immigration  that  began  about  1845  is  dis- 
tinguished from  some  of  the  early  colonizations  in  that  it 
was  in  no  sense  a  religious  movement.  Very  grave  re- 
ligious results  were  to  issue  from  it ;  but  they  were  to  be 
achieved  through  the  unconscious  cooperation  of  a  multi- 
tude of  individuals  each  intent  with  singleness  of  vision  on 
his  own  individual  ends.  It  is  by  such  unconscious  coop- 
eration that  the  directing  mind  and  the  overruling  hand  of 
God  in  history  are  most  signally  illustrated. 


3l8  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xviii. 

In  the  first  rush  of  this  increased  immigration  by  far  the 
greatest  contributor  of  new  population  was  Ireland.  It 
not  only  surpassed  any  other  country  in  the  number  of  its 
immigrants,  but  in  the  height  of  the  Irish  exodus,  in  the 
decade  1840-50,  it  nearly  equaled  all  other  countries 
of  the  world  together.  The  incoming  Irish  miUions  were 
almost  solidly  Roman  Catholic.  The  measures  taken  by 
the  British  government  for  many  generations  to  attach  the 
Irish  people  to  the  crown  and  convert  them  to  the  English 
standard  of  Protestantism  had  had  the  result  of  discharging 
upon  our  shores  a  people  distinguished  above  all  Christen- 
dom besides  for  its  ardent  and  unreserved  devotion  to  the 
Roman  Church,  and  hardly  less  distinguished  for  its  hatred 
to  England. 

After  the  first  flood-tide  the  relative  number  of  the  Irish 
immigrants  began  to  decrease,  and  has  kept  on  decreasing 
until  now.  Since  the  Civil  War  the  chief  source  of  immi- 
gration has  been  Germany  ;  and  its  contributions  to  our 
population  have  greatly  aggrandized  the  Lutheran  denomi- 
nation, once  so  inconsiderable  in  numbers,  until  in  many 
western  cities  it  is  the  foremost  of  the  Protestant  com- 
munions, and  in  Chicago  outnumbers  the  communicants 
of  the  Episcopahan,  the  Presbyterian,  and  the  Methodist 
churches  combined. ^  The  German  immigration  has  con- 
tributed its  share,  and  probably  more  than  its  share,  to 
our  non-religious  and  churchless  population.  Withal,  in  a 
proportion  which  it  is  not  easy  to  ascertain  with  precision, 
it  added  multitudinous  thousands  to  the  sudden  and  enor- 
mous growth  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  But  there  is 
an  instructive  contrast  between  the  German  immigrations, 
whether  Catholic  or  Protestant,  and  the  Irish  immigration. 
The  Catholicism  of  the  Irish,  held  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration in  the  face  of  partisan  and  sometimes  cruelly  per- 
1  Jacobs,  "  The  Lutherans,"  p.  446. 


MIGRATIOK,   CATIWL/C  AND  PROTESTANT.        319 

secuting  laws,  was  held  with  the  ardor,  if  not  of  personal 
conviction,  at  least  of  strong  hereditary  animosity.  To 
the  Germans,  their  religious  sect,  whether  Catholic,  Lu- 
theran, or  Reformed,  is  determined  for  them  by  political 
arrangement,  under  the  principle  cujus  regio,  ejus  rcligio. 
It  is  matter  of  course  that  tenets  thus  acquired  should  be 
held  by  a  tenure  so  far  removed  from  fanaticism  as  to 
seem  to  more  zealous  souls  much  like  lukewarmness. 
Accustomed  to  have  the  cost  of  religious  institutions  pro- 
vided for  in  the  budget  of  public  expenses,  the  wards  of  the 
Old  World  state-churches  find  themselves  here  in  strange 
surroundings,  untrained  in  habits  of  self-denial  for  religious 
objects.  The  danger  is  a  grave  and  real  one  that  before 
they  become  accHmated  to  the  new  conditions  a  large  per- 
centage will  be  lost,  not  only  from  their  hereditary  com- 
munion, but  from  all  Christian  fellowship,  and  lapse  into 
simple  indiflferentism  and  godlessness.  They  have  much 
to  learn  and  something  to  teach.  The  indigenous  Ameri- 
can churches  are  not  likely  to  be  docile  learners  at  the  feet 
of  alien  teachers ;  but  it  would  seem  like  the  slighting  of 
a  providential  opportunity  if  the  older  sects  should  fail  to 
recognize  that  one  of  the  greatest  and  by  far  the  most 
rapidly  growing  of  the  Protestant  churches  of  America, 
the  Lutheran,  growing  now  with  new  increments  not  only 
from  the  German,  but  also  from  the  Scandinavian  nations, 
is  among  us  in  such  force  to  teach  us  somewhat  by  its 
example  of  the  equable,  systematic,  and  methodical  ways 
of  a  state-church,  as  well  as  to  learn  something  from  the 
irregular  fervor  of  that  revivalism  which  its  neighbors  on 
every  hand  have  inherited  from  the  Great  Awakening.  It 
would  be  the  very  extravagance  of  national  self-conceit  if 
the  older  American  churches  should  become  possessed  of 
the  idea  that  four  millions  of  German  Christians  and  one 
million  of  Scandinavians,  arriving  here  from  i860  to  1890, 


320  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xviii. 

with  their  characteristic  methods  in  theology  and  usages 
of  worship  and  habits  of  church  organization  and  adminis- 
tration, were  here,  in  the  providence  of  God,  only  to  be 
assimilated  and  not  at  all  to  assimilate. 

The  vast  growth  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in 
America  could  not  but  fill  its  clergy  and  adherents  with 
wonder  and  honest  pride.  But  it  was  an  occasion  of  im- 
mense labors  and  not  a  little  anxiety.  One  effect  of  the 
enormous  immigration  was  inevitably  to  impose  upon  this 
church,  according  to  the  popular  apprehension,  the  char- 
acter of  a  foreign  association,  and,  in  the  earlier  periods  of 
the  influx,  of  an  Irish  association.  It  was  in  like  manner 
inevitable,  from  the  fact  that  the  immigrant  class  are  pre- 
ponderantly poor  and  of  low  social  rank,  that  it  should  for 
two  or  three  generations  be  looked  upon  as  a  church  for 
the  iUiterate  and  unskilled  laboring  class.  An  incident  of 
the  excessive  torrent  rush  of  the  immigration  was  that  the 
Catholic  Church  became  to  a  disproportionate  extent  an 
urban  institution,  making  no  adequate  provision  for  the 
dispersed  in  agricultural  regions. 

Against  these  and  other  like  disadvantages  the  hierarchy 
of  the  Catholic  Church  have  struggled  heroically,  with 
some  measure  of  success.  The  steadily  rising  character  of 
the  imported  population  in  its  successive  generations  has 
aided  them.  If  in  the  first  generations  the  churches  were 
congregations  of  immigrants  served  by  an  imported  clergy, 
the  most  strenuous  exertions  were  made  for  the  founding 
of  institutions  that  should  secure  to  future  congregations 
born  upon  the  soil  the  services  of  an  American-trained 
priesthood.  One  serious  hindrance  to  the  noble  advances 
that  have  nevertheless  been  made  in  this  direction  has  been 
the  fanatical  opposition  levied  against  even  the  most  benef- 
icent   enterprises  of    the    church  by  a  bigoted   Native- 


TASK'  OF   THE   CATHOLIC   CLERGY.  32 1 

Americanism.  It  is  not  a  hopeful  method  of  conciliating 
and  naturaUzing  a  foreign  element  in  the  community  to 
treat  them  with  suspicion  and  hostility  as  alien  enemies. 
Tiie  shameful  persecution  which  the  mob  was  for  a  brief 
time  permitted  to  inflict  on  Catholic  churches  and  schools 
and  convents  had  for  its  chief  efTect  to  confirm  the  for- 
eigner in  his  adherence  to  his  church  and  his  antipathy  to 
Protestantism,  and  to  provoke  a  twofold  ferocity  in  return. 
At  a  time  when  there  was  reason  to  apprehend  a  Know- 
nothing  riot  in  New  York,  in  1844,  a  plan  was  concerted 
and  organized  by  "  a  large  Irish  society  with  divisions 
throughout  the  city,"  by  which,  "  in  case  a  single  church 
was  attacked,  buildings  should  be  fired  in  all  quarters  and 
the  great  city  should  be  involved  in  a  general  conflagra- 
tion." ^ 

The  utmost  that  could  have  been  hoped  for  by  the  de- 
voted but  inadequate  body  of  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy 
in  America,  overwhelmed  by  an  influx  of  their  people 
coming  in  upon  them  in  increasing  volume,  numbering 
millions  per  annum,  was  that  they  might  be  able  to  hold 
their  own.  But  this  hope  was  very  far  from  being  attained. 
How  great  have  been  the  losses  to  the  Roman  communion 
through  the  transplantation  of  its  members  across  the  sea 
is  a  question  to  which  the  most  widely  varying  answers 
have  been  given,  and  on  which  statistical  exactness  seems 
unattainable.  The  various  estimates,  agreeing  in  nothing 
else,   agree  in   representing  them  as  enormously  great.^ 

1  Bishop  O'Gorman,  "The  Roman  Catholics,"  p.  375.  The  atrocity  of 
such  a  plot  seems  incredible.  We  should  have  classed  it  at  once  with  the 
Marta  Monk  story,  and  other  fabulous  horrors  of  Dr.  Brownlee's  Protestant 
Society,  but  that  we  find  it  in  the  sober  and  dispassionate  pages  of  Bishop 
O'Gorman's  History,  which  is  derived  from  original  sources  of  information. 
If  anything  could  have  justified  the  animosity  of  the  "  native  Americans  " 
(who,  l^y  the  way,  were  widely  suspected  to  be,  in  large  proportion,  native 
Ulstermen)  it  would  have  been  the  finding  of  evidence  of  such  facts  as  this 
which  Bishop  O'Gorman  has  disclosed. 

2  The  subject  is  reviewed  in  detail,  from  opposite  points  of  view,  by  Bishop 


322  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xviii. 

All  good  men  will  also  agree  that  in  so  far  as  these  losses 
represent  mere  lapses  into  unbelief  and  irreligion  they  are 
to  be  deplored.  Happily  there  is  good  evidence  of  a  large 
salvage,  gathered  into  other  churches,  from  what  so  easily 
becomes  a  shipwreck  of  faith  with  total  loss. 

It  might  seem  surprising,  in  view  of  the  many  and 
diverse  resources  of  attractive  influence  which  the  Roman 
Church  has  at  its  command,  that  its  losses  have  not  been 
to  some  larger  extent  compensated  by  conversions  from 
other  sects.  Instances  of  such  conversion  are  by  no  means 
wanting;  but  so  far  as  a  popular  current  toward  Catholi- 
cism is  concerned,  the  attractions  in  that  direction  are  out- 
weighed by  the  disadvantages  already  referred  to.  It  has 
not  been  altogether  a  detriment  to  the  Catholic  Church  in 
America  that  the  social  status  and  personal  composition  of 

O'Gorman,  pp.  489-500,  and  by  Dr.  Daniel  Dorchester,  "  Christianity  in 
the  United  States,"  pp.  618-621.  One  of  the  most  recent  estimates  is  tliat 
presented  to  the  CathoHc  Congress  at  Chicago,  in  1893,  in  a  remarkable 
speech  by  Mr.  M.  T.  Elder,  of  New  Orleans.  Speaking  of  "the  losses  sus- 
tained by  the  church  in  this  country,  placed  by  a  conservative  estimate  at 
twenty  millions  of  people,  he  laid  the  responsibility  for  this  upon  neglect  of 
immigration  and  colonization,  i.e.,  neglect  of  the  rural  population.  From 
this  results  a  long  train  of  losses."  He  added:  "  When  I  see  how  largely 
Catholicity  is  represented  among  our  hoodlum  element,  I  feel  in  no  spread- 
eagle  mood.  When  I  note  how  few  Catholics  are  engaged  in  honestly  tilling 
the  honest  soil,  and  how  many  Catholics  are  engaged  in  the  liquor  traffic,  1 
cannot  talk  buncombe  to  anybody.  When  I  reflect  that  out  of  the  70,000,000 
of  this  nation  we  number  only  9,000,000,  and  that  out  of  that  9,000,000  so 
large  a  proportion  is  made  up  of  poor  factory  hands,  poor  mill  and  shop  and 
mine  and  railroad  employees,  poor  government  clerks,  I  still  fail  to  find  ma- 
terial for  buncombe  or  spread-eagle  or  tafly-giving.  And  who  can  look  at  our 
past  history  and  feel  proud  of  our  present  status  ?  "  He  advocated  as  a  remedy 
for  this  present  state  of  things  a  movement  toward  colonization,  with  especial 
attention  to  extension  of  educational  advantages  for  rural  Catholics,  and  in- 
struction of  urban  Catholics  in  the  advantages  of  rural  life.  "  For  so  long  as 
the  rural  South,  the  pastoral  West,  the  agricultural  East,  the  farming  Middle 
States,  remain  solidly  Protestant,  as  they  now  are,  so  long  will  this  nation, 
this  government,  this  whole  people,  remain  solidly  Protestant"  ("The 
World's  Parliament  of  Religions,"  pp.  1414,  1415). 

It  is  a  fact  not  easy  to  be  accounted  for  that  the  statistics  of  no  Christian 
communion  in  America  are  so  defective,  uncertain,  and  generally  unsatisfactory 
as  those  of  the  most  solidly  organized  and  completely  systematized  of  them 
all,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 


CATHOLICISM  IX  AMERICA.  323 

its  congregations,  in  its  earlier  years,  have  been  such  that 
the  transition  into  it  from  any  of  the  Protestant  churches 
could  be  made  only  at  the  cost  of  a  painful  self-denial. 
The  number  of  accessions  to  it  has  been  thereby  lessened, 
but  (leaving  out  the  case  of  the  transition  of  politicians 
from  considerations  of  expediency)  the  quality  of  them  has 
been  severely  sifted.  Incomparably  the  most  valuable 
acquisition  which  the  American  Catholic  Church  has  re- 
ceived has  been  the  company  of  devoted  and  gifted  young 
men,  deeply  imbued  with  the  principles  and  sentiments  of 
the  High-church  party  in  the  Episcopal  Church,  who  have 
felt  constrained  in  conscience  and  in  logic  to  take  the  step, 
which  seems  so  short,  from  the  highest  level  in  the  Angli- 
can Church  into  the  Roman,  and  who,  organized  into  the 
Order  of  the  Paulist  Fathers,  have  exemplified  in  the 
Roman  Church  so  many  of  the  highest  qualities  of  Protes- 
tant preaching. 

He  is  a  bold  man  who  will  undertake  to  predict  in  detail 
the  future  of  the  Roman  Church  in  America.  To  say 
that  it  will  be  modified  by  its  surroundings  is  only  to  say 
what  is  true  of  it  in  all  countries.  To  say  that  it  will  be 
modified  for  the  better  is  to  say  what  is  true  of  it  in  all 
Protestant  countries.  Nowhere  is  the  Roman  Church  so 
pure  from  scandal  and  so  effective  for  good  as  where  it  is 
closely  surrounded  and  jealously  scrutinized  by  bodies  of 
its  fellow- Christians  whom  it  is  permitted  to  recognize 
only  as  heretics.  But  when  the  influence  of  surrounding 
heresy  is  seen  to  be  an  indispensable  blessing  to  the  church, 
the  heretic  himself  comes  to  be  looked  upon  with  a  miti- 
gated horror.  Not  with  the  sacrifice  of  any  principle,  but 
through  the  application  of  some  of  those  provisions  b}' 
which  the  Latin  theology  is  able  to  meet  exigencies  lilce 
this, — the  allowance  in  favor  of  "  in\-incible  ignorance  " 
and  prejudice,  the  distinction  between  the  body  and  "  the 


324  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xviil. 

soul  of  the  church," — the  Roman  Catholic,  recognizing 
the  spirit  of  Christ  in  his  Protestant  fellow- Christian,  is 
able  to  hold  him  in  spiritual  if  not  formal  communion,  so 
that  the  Catholic  Church  may  prove  itself  not  dissevered 
from  the  Church  Catholic.  In  the  common  duties  of  citi- 
zenship and  of  humanity,  in  the  promotion  of  the  interests 
of  morality,  even  in  those  religious  matters  that  are  of 
common  concern  to  all  honest  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ,  he 
is  at  one  with  his  heretic  brethren.  Without  the  change 
of  a  single  item  either  of  doctrine  or  of  discipline,  the  at- 
titude and  temper  of  the  church,  as  compared  with  the 
church  of  Spain  or  Italy  or  Mexico,  is  revolutionized. 
The  change  must  needs  draw  with  it  other  changes,  which 
may  not  come  without  some  jar  and  conflict  between 
progressive  and  conservative,  but  which  nevertheless  needs 
must  come.  Out  of  many  indications  of  the  spirit  of  fel- 
lowship with  all  Christians  now  exemplified  among  Ameri- 
can Catholics,  I  quote  one  of  the  most  recent  and  authori- 
tative from  an  address  of  Archbishop  Ryan  at  the  Catholic 
Congress  in  Chicago  in  1893.  Speaking  on  Christian 
union,  he  said : 

"  If  there  is  any  one  thing  more  than  another  upon 
which  people  agree,  it  is  respect  and  reverence  for  the 
person  and  the  character  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity. 
How  the  Protestant  loves  his  Saviour!  How  the  Protes- 
tant eye  will  sometimes  grow  dim  when  speaking  of  our 
Lord!  In  this  great  center  of  union  is  found  the  hope  of 
human  society,  the  only  means  of  preserving  Christian 
civilization,  the  only  point  upon  which  Catholic  and  Prot- 
estant may  meet.  As  if  foreseeing  that  this  should  be, 
Christ  himself  gave  his  example  of  fraternal  charity,  not  to 
the  orthodox  Jew,  but  to  the  heretical  Samaritan,  showing 
that  charity  and  love,  while  faith  remains  intact,  can  never 


THE   GREATER    CATHOLIC   CHURCH.  325 

be  true  unless  no  distinction  is  made  between  God's  crea- 
tures." ^ 

Herein  is  fellowship  higher  than  that  of  symbols  and 
sacraments.  By  so  far  as  it  receives  this  spirit  of  love  the 
American  Catholic  Church  enters  into  its  place  in  that 
greater  Catholic  Church  of  which  we  all  make  mention  in 
the  Apostles'  Creed — "  the  Holy  Universal  Church,  which 
is  the  fellowship  of  holy  souls." 

The  effect  of  the  Great  Immigration  on  the  body  of  the 
immigrant  population  is  not  more  interesting  or  more  im- 
portant than  the  effect  of  it  on  the  religious  bodies  already 
in  occupation  of  the  soil.  The  impression  made  on  them 
by  what  seemed  an  irruption  of  barbarians  of  strange  lan- 
guage or  dialect,  for  the  most  part  rude,  unskilled,  and 
illiterate,  shunning  as  profane  the  Christian  churches  of  the 
land,  and  bowing  in  unknown  rites  as  devotees  of  a  system 
known,  and  by  no  means  favorably  known,  only  through 
polemic  literature  and  history,  and  through  the  gruesome 
traditions  of  Puritan  and  Presbyterian  and  Huguenot,  was 
an  impression  not  far  removed  from  horror;  and  this  im- 
pression was  deepened  as  the  enormous  proportions  of  this 
invasion  disclosed  themselves  from  year  to  year.  The 
serious  and  not  unreasonable  fear  that  these  armies  of 
aliens,  handled  as  they  manifestly  were  by  a  generalship 
that  was  quick  to  seize  and  fortify  in  a  conspicuous  way 
the  strategic  points  of  influence,  especially  in  the  new 
States,  might  imperil  or  ruin  the  institutions  and  liberties 
of  the  young  Republic,  was  stimulated  and  exploited  in  the 
interest  of  enterprises  of  evangelization  that  might  counter- 
work the  operations  of  the  invading  church.     The  appeals 

1  "  Parliament  of  Religions,"  p.  141 7.  An  obvious  verbal  misprint  is  cor- 
rected in  the  quotation. 


326  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xviii. 

of  the  Bible  and  tract  societies,  and  of  the  various  home 
mission  agencies  of  the  different  denominations,  as  well  as 
of  the  distinctively  antipopery  societies,  were  pointed  with 
the  alarm  lest  "  the  great  West "  should  fall  under  the 
domination  of  the  papal  hierarchy.  Naturally  the  deline- 
ations of  the  Roman  system  and  of  its  public  and  social 
results  that  were  presented  to  the  public  for  these  purposes 
were  of  no  flattering  character.  Not  history  only,  but  con- 
temporary geography  gave  warnings  of  peril.  Canada  on 
one  hand,  and  Mexico  and  the  rest  of  Spanish  America  on 
the  other,  were  cited  as  living  examples  of  the  fate  which 
might  befall  the  free  United  States.  The  apocalyptic 
prophecies  were  copiously  drawn  upon  for  material  of  war. 
By  processes  of  exegesis  which  critical  scholarship  regards 
with  a  smile  or  a  shudder,  the  helpless  pope  was  made  to 
figure  as  the  Antichrist,  the  Man  of  Sin  and  Son  of  Per- 
dition, the  Scarlet  Woman  on  the  Seven  Hills,  the  Little 
Horn  Speaking  Blasphemies,  the  Beast,  and  the  Great  Red 
Dragon.  That  moiety  of  Christendom  which,  sorely  as  its 
history  has  been  deformed  by  corruption  and  persecution, 
violently  as  it  seems  to  be  contrasted  with  the  simplicity 
of  the  primeval  church,  is  nevertheless  the  spiritual  home 
of  multitudes  of  Christ's  well- approved  servants  and  disci- 
ples, was  held  up  to  gaze  as  being  nothing  but  the  enemy 
of  Christ  and  his  cause.  The  appetite  of  the  Protestant 
public  for  scandals  at  the  expense  of  their  fellow-Christians 
was  stimulated  to  a  morbid  greediness  and  then  overfed 
with  willful  and  wicked  fabrications.  The  effect  of  this 
fanaticism  on  some  honest  but  illogical  minds  was  what 
might  have  been  looked  for.  Brought  by  and  by  into 
personal  acquaintance  with  Catholic  ministers  and  institu- 
tions, and  discovering  the  fraud  and  injustice  that  had 
been  perpetrated,  they  sprang  by  a  generous  reaction  into 
an  attitude  of  sympathy  for  the  Roman  Catholic  system. 


PLANTLVG    THE    CHURCH  IN    THE    WEST.  327 

A  more  favorable  preparation  of  the  way  of  conversion  to 
Rome  could  not  be  desired  by  the  skillful  propagandist. 
One  recognizes  a  retributive  justice  in  the  fact,  when  no- 
table gains  to  the  Catholic  Church  are  distinctly  traced  to 
the  reaction  of  honest  men  from  these  fraudulent  polemics.' 
The  danger  to  the  Republic,  which  was  thus  malignantly 
or  ignorantly  exaggerated  and  distorted,  was  nevertheless 
real  and  grave.  No  sincerely  earnest  and  religious  Prot- 
estant, nor  even  any  well-informed  patriotic  citizen,  with 
the  example  of  French  and  Spanish  America  before  his 
eyes,  could  look  with  tolerance  upon  the  prospect  of  a 
possible  Catholicizing  of  the  new  States  at  the  West ;  and 
the  sight  of  the  incessant  tide  of  immigration  setting  west- 
ward, the  reports  of  large  funds  sent  hither  from  abroad  to 
aid  the  propagation  of  the  Roman  Church,  and  the  ac- 
counts of  costly  and  imposing  ecclesiastical  buildings  rising 
at  the  most  important  centers  of  population,  roused  the 
Christian  patriotism  of  the  older  States  to  the  noblest  en- 
terprises of  evangelization.  There  was  no  wasting  of 
energy  in  futile  disputation.  In  all  the  Protestant  com- 
munions it  was  felt  that  the  work  called  for  was  a  simple, 
peaceful,  and  positive  one — to  plant  the  soil  of  the  West, 
at  the  first  occupation  of  it  by  settlers,  with  Christian  in- 
stitutions and  influences.  The  immensity  of  the  task 
stimulated  rather  than  dismayed  the  zeal  of  the  various 
churches.  The  work  undertaken  and  accomplished  in  the 
twenty  years  from  1840  to  i860  in  providing  the  newly 
settled  regions  with  churches,  pastors,  colleges,  and  theo- 
logical seminaries,  with  Sunday-schools,  and  with  Bibles 

1  Bishop  O'Gornian,  pp.  439,  440.  James  Parton,  in  the  "Atlantic 
Monthly,"  April  and  May,  1868.  So  lately  as  the  year  1869  a  long  list  of 
volumes  of  this  scandalous  rubbish  continued  to  be  offered  to  the  public,  under 
the  indorsement  of  eminent  names,  by  the  "  American  and  Foreign  Christian 
Union,"  until  the  society  was  driven  by  public  exposure  into  withdrawing 
them  from  sale.  See  "  The  Literature  of  the  Coming  Controversy,"  in 
"  Putnam's  Magazine"  for  January,  1869. 


328  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xvui. 

and  other  religious  books,  was  of  a  magnitude  which  will 
never  be  defined  by  statistical  figures.  How  great  it  was, 
and  at  what  cost  it  was  effected  in  gifts  of  treasure  and  of 
heroic  lives  of  toil  and  self-denial,  can  only  be  a  matter  of 
vague  wonder  and  thanksgiving. 

The  work  of  planting  the  church  in  the  West  exhibits 
the  voluntary  system  at  its  best — and  at  its  worst.  A  task- 
so  vast  and  so  momentous  has  never  been  imposed  on  the 
resources  of  any  state  establishment.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
no  established  church  has  ever  existed,  however  imperially 
endowed,  that  would  have  been  equal  to  the  undertaking 
of  it.  With  no  imposing  combination  of  forces,  and  no 
strategic  concert  of  action,  the  work  was  begun  spontane- 
ously and  simultaneously,  like  some  of  the  operations  of 
nature,  by  a  multitude  of  different  agencies,  and  went  for- 
ward uninterrupted  to  something  as  nearly  like  completeness 
as  could  be  in  a  work  the  exigencies  of  which  continually 
widened  beyond  all  achievements.  The  planting  of  the 
church  in  the  West  is  one  of  the  wonders  of  church  history. 

But  this  noble  act  of  religious  devotion  was  by  no  means 
a  sacrifice  without  blemish.  The  sacred  zeal  for  advancing 
God's  reign  and  righteousness  was  mingled  with  many  very 
human  motives  in  the  progress  of  it.  Conspicuous  among 
these  was  the  spirit  of  sectarian  competition.  The  worthy 
and  apostolic  love  for  kindred  according  to  the  flesh  sepa- 
rated from  home  and  e.xposed  to  the  privations  and  temp- 
tations of  the  frontier,  the  honest  anxiety  to  forestall  the 
domination  of  a  dangerously  powerful  religious  corpora- 
tion propagating  perverted  views  of  truth,  even  the  desire 
to  advance  principles  and  forms  of  belief  deemed  to  be 
important,  were  infused  with  a  spirit  of  partisanship  as  lit- 
tle spiritual  as  the  enthusiasm  which  animates  the  strug- 
glers  and  the  shouters  at  a  foot-ball  game.  The  devoted 
pioneer  of  the  gospel  on  the  frontier,   seeing  his  work 


SECTARIAN  COMPETITIONS.  329 

endangered  by  that  of  a  rival  denomination,  writes  to  the 
central  office  of  his  sect ;  the  board  of  missions  makes  its 
appeal  to  the  contributing  churches  ;  the  churches  respond 
with  subsidies ;  and  the  local  rivalry  in  the  mission  field  is 
pressed,  sometimes  to  a  good  result,  on  the  principle  that 
"  competition  is  the  life  of  business."  Thus  the  fragrance 
of  the  precious  ointment  of  loving  sacrifice  is  perceptibly 
tainted,  according  to  the  warning  of  Ecclesiastes  or  the 
Preacher.  And  yet  it  is  not  easy  for  good  men,  being 
men,  sternly  to  rebuke  the  spirit  that  seems  to  be  effective 
in  promoting  the  good  cause  that  they  have  at  heart. 

If  the  effect  of  these  emulations  on  the  contributing 
churches  was  rather  carnal  than  spiritual,  the  effect  in  the 
mission  field  was  worse.  The  effect  was  seen  in  the 
squandering  of  money  and  of  priceless  service  of  good 
men  and  women,  in  the  debilitating  and  demoralizing 
division  and  subdivision  of  the  Christian  people,  not  of 
cities  and  large  towns,  but  of  villages  and  hamlets  and  of 
thinly  settled  farming  districts.  By  the  building  of 
churches  and  other  edifices  for  sectarian  uses,  schism  was 
established  for  coming  time  as  a  vested  interest.  The 
gifts  and  service  bestowed  in  this  cause  with  a  truly 
magnificent  liberality  would  have  sufficed  to  establish  the 
Christian  faith  and  fellowship  throughout  the  new  settle- 
ments in  strength  and  dignity,  in  churches  which,  instead 
of  lingering  as  puny  and  dependent  nurslings,  would  have 
grown  apace  to  be  strong  and  healthy  nursing  mothers  to 
newer  churches  yet. 

There  is  an  instructive  contrast,  not  only  between  the 
working  of  the  voluntary  system  and  that  of  the  Old  World 
establishments,  but  between  the  methods  of  the  Catholic 
Church  and  the  Protestant  no-method.  Under  the  con- 
trol of  a  strong  coordinating  authority  the  competitions  of 
the  various  Catholic  orders,  however  sharp,  could  never  be 


330  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xviii. 

allowed  to  run  into  wasteful  extravagance  through  cross-  ^ 
purposes.  It  is  beHeved  that  the  Catholics  have  not 
erected  many  monuments  of  their  own  unthrlft  in  the 
shape  of  costly  buildings  begun,  but  left  unfinished  and 
abandoned.  A  more  common  incident  of  their  work  has 
been  the  buying  up  of  these  expensive  failures,  at  a  large 
reduction  from  their  cost,  and  turning  them  to  useful  ser- 
vice. And  yet  the  principle  of  sectarian  competition  is 
both  recognized  and  utilized  in  the  Roman  system.  The 
various  clerical  sects,  with  their  characteristic  names,  cos- 
tumes, methods,  and  doctrinal  differences,  have  their  rec- 
ognized aptitudes  for  various  sorts  of  work,  with  which 
their  names  are  strongly  associated :  the  Dominican  for 
pulpit  eloquence,  the  Capuchin  for  rough-and-ready  street- 
preaching,  the  Benedictine  for  hterary  work,  the  Sulpitian 
for  the  training  of  priests,  and  the  ubiquitous  Jesuit  for 
shifty  general  utility  with  a  specialty  of  school-keeping. 
These  and  a  multitude  of  other  orders,  male  and  female, 
have  been  effectively  and  usefully  employed  in  the  arduous 
labor  Romanam  condere  gen  tern.  But  it  would  seem  that 
the  superior  stability  of  the  present  enterprise  of  planting 
Catholicism  in  the  domain  of  the  United  States,  as  com- 
pared with  former  expensive  failures,  was  due  in  some  \ 
part  to  the  larger  employment  of  a  diocesan  parish  clergy 
instead  of  a  disproportionate  reliance  on  the  "  regulars," 
On  the  whole,  notwithstanding  its  immense  armies  of 
immigrants  and  the  devoted  labors  of  its  priests,  and  not- 
withstanding its  great  expansion,  visible  everywhere  in 
conspicuous  monuments  of  architecture,  the  Catholic  ad- 
vance in  America  has  not  been,  comparatively  speaking, 
successful.  For  one  thing,  the  campaign  was  carried  on 
too  far  from  its  base  of  supplies.  The  subsidies  from 
Lyons  and  Vienna,  liberal  as  they  were,  were  no  match 
for  the  home  missionary  zeal  of  the  seaboard  States  in 


CATHOLIC  AND   PKOTESTAXT  MISSIONS.  5 J,  I 

following  their  own  sons  westward  with  church  and  gospel 
and  pastor.  Even  the  conditions  which  made  possible  the 
superior  management  and  economy  of  resources,  both 
material  and  personal,  among  the  Catholics,  were  attended 
with  compensating  drawbacks.  "With  these  advantages 
they  could  not  have  the  immense  advantage  of  the  popu- 
lar initiative.  In  Protestantism  the  people  were  the 
church,  and  the  minister  was  chief  among  the  people  only 
by  virtue  of  being  servant  of  all ;  the  people  were  incited 
to  take  up  the  work  for  their  own  and  carry  it  on  at  their 
best  discretion ;  and  they  were  free  to  make  wasteful  and 
disastrous  blunders  and  learn  therefrom  by  experience. 
With  far  greater  expenditure  of  funds,  they  make  no  com- 
parison with  their  brethren  of  the  Roman  obedience  in 
stately  and  sumptuous  buildings  at  great  centers  of  com- 
merce and  travel.  But  they  have  covered  the  face  of  the 
land  with  country  meeting-houses,  twice  as  many  as  there 
was  any  worthy  use  for,  in  which  faithful  service  is  ren- 
dered to  subdivided  congregations  by  underpaid  ministers, 
enough  in  number,  if  they  were  wisely  distributed,  for  the 
evangelization  of  the  whole  continent ;  and  each  country 
meeting-house  is  a  mission  station,  and  its  congregation, 
men,  women,  and  children,  are  missionaries.  Thus  it  has 
come  about,  in  the  language  of  the  earnest  Catholic  from 
the  once  Catholic  city  of  New  Orleans,  that  "  the  nation, 
the  government,  the  whole  people,  remain  solidly  Prot- 
estant."^ Great  territories  originally  discovered  by 
Catholic  explorers  and  planted  in  the  name  of  the  church 
by  Catholic  missionaries  and  colonists,  and  more  lately 
occupied  by  Catholic  immigrants  in  what  seemed  over- 
whelming numbers,  are  now  the  seat  of  free  and  powerful 
commonwealths  in  which  the  Catholic  Church  is  only  one 

1  Speech  of  Mr.  M.  T.  Elder,  of  New  Orleans,  in  the  Catholic  Congress 
at  Chicago,  1893,  quoted  above,  p.  322,  note. 


332  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xviii. 

of  the  most  powerful  and  beneficent  of  the  Christian  sects, 
while  the  institutions  and  influences  which  characterize 
their  society  are  predominantly  Protestant. 

In  the  westward  propagation  of  Protestantism,  as  well 
as  of  Catholicism,  the  distinctive  attributes  of  the  several 
sects  or  orders  is  strikingly  illustrated. 

Foremost  in  the  pioneer  work  of  the  church  are  easily 
to  be  recognized  the  Methodists  and  the  Baptists,  one  the 
most  solidly  organized  of  the  Protestant  sects,  the  other 
the  most  uncompact  and  individualist;  the  first  by  virtue 
of  the  supple  military  organization  of  its  great  corps  of 
itinerants,  the  other  by  the  simplicity  and  popular  appre- 
hensibleness  of  its  distinctive  tenets  and  arguments  and 
the  aggressive  ardor  with  which  it  inspires  all  its  converts, 
and  both  by  their  facility  in  recruiting  their  ministry  from 
the  rank  and  file  of  the  church,  without  excluding  any  by 
arbitrarily  imposed  conditions.  The  Presbyterians  were 
heavily  cumbered  for  advance  work  by  traditions  and  rules 
which  they  were  rigidly  reluctant  to  yield  or  bend,  even 
when  the  reason  for  the  rule  was  superseded  by  higher  rea- 
sons. The  argument  for  a  learned  ministry  is  doubtless  a 
weighty  one ;  but  it  does  not  suffice  to  prove  that  when 
college-bred  men  are  not  to  be  had  it  is  better  that  the 
people  have  no  minister  at  all.  There  is  virtue  in  the  rule 
of  ministerial  parity ;  but  it  should  not  be  allowed  to 
hinder  the  church  from  employing  in  humbler  spiritual 
functions  men  who  fall  below  the  prescribed  standard. 
This  the  church,  in  course  of  time,  discovered,  and  insti- 
tuted a  "  minor  order "  of  ministers,  under  the  title  of 
colporteurs.  But  it  was  timidly  and  tardily  done,  and 
therefore  ineffectively.  The  Presbyterians  lost  their  place 
in  the  skirmish-line ;  but  that  which  had  been  their  hin- 
drance in  the  advance  work  gave  them  great  advantage  in 
settled  communities,  in  which  for  many  years  they  took 


I 


MISSION   OF    Tin:   SECTS.  333 

precedence  in  the  building  up  of  strong  and  intelligent 
congregations. 

To  the  Congregationalists  belongs  an  honor  in  the  past 
which,  in  recent  generations,  they  have  not  been  jealous 
to  retain.  Beyond  any  sect,  except  the  Moravians,  they 
have  cherished  that  charity  which  seeketh  not  her  own. 
The  earliest  leaders  in  the  organization  of  schemes  of 
national  beneficence  in  cooperation  with  others,  they  have 
sustained  them  with  unselfish  liberality,  without  regard  to 
returns  of  sectarian  advantage.  The  results  of  their  labor 
are  largely  to  be  traced  in  the  upbuilding  of  other  sects. 
Their  specialty  in  evangelization  has  been  that  of  the  re- 
ligious educators  of  the  nation.  They  have  been  preemi- 
nently the  builders  of  colleges  and  theological  seminaries. 
To  them,  also,  belongs  the  leadership  in  religious  journal- 
ism. Not  only  the  journals  of  their  own  sect  and  the 
undenominational  journals,  but  also  to  a  notable  extent 
the  religious  journals  of  other  denominations,  have  de- 
pended for  their  efficiency  on  men  bred  in  the  discipline 
of  Congregationalism. 

It  is  no  just  reproach  to  the  Episcopalians  that  they 
were  tardy  in  entering  the  field  of  home  missions.  When 
we  remember  that  it  is  only  since  181 1  that  they  have 
emerged  from  numerical  insignificance,  we  find  their  con- 
tribution to  the  planting  of  the  church  in  the  new  settle- 
ments to  be  a  highly  honorable  one.  By  a  suicidal  compact 
the  guileless  Evangelical  party  agreed,  in  1835,  to  take 
direction  of  the  foreign  missions  of  the  church,  and  leave 
the  home  field  under  the  direction  of  the  aggressive  High- 
church  party.  It  surrendered  its  part  in  the  future  of  the 
church,  and  determined  the  type  of  Episcopalianism  that 
was  to  be  planted  in  the  West.'  Entering  thus  late  into 
the  work,  and  that  with  stinted  resources,  the  Episcopal 
1  Tiffany,  "  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,"  p.  459. 


334  AMERICAN   CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xviii. 

Church  wholl}-  missed  the  apostolic  glory  of  not  building 
on  other  men's  foundations.  Coming  with  the  highest 
pretensions  to  exclusive  authority,  its  work  was  very 
largely  a  work  of  proselyting  from  other  Christian  sects. 
But  this  work  was  prosperously  carried  on ;  and  although 
not  in  itself  a  work  of  the  highest  dignity,  and  although 
the  methods  of  it  often  bore  a  painfully  schismatic  charac- 
ter, there  is  little  room  for  doubt  that  the  results  of  it  have 
enriched  and  strengthened  the  common  Christianity  of 
America.  Its  specialties  in  the  planting  work  have  been 
the  setting  of  a  worthy  example  of  dignity  and  simplicity  in 
the  conduct  of  divine  worship,  and  in  general  of  efficiency  in 
the  administration  of  a  parish,  and,  above  all,  the  successful 
handling  of  the  immensely  dif^cult  duties  imposed  upon 
Christian  congregations  in  great  cities,  where  the  Episco- 
pal Church  has  its  chief  strength  and  its  most  effective 
work. 

One  must  needs  ascend  to  a  certain  altitude  above  the 
common  level  in  order  to  discern  a  substantial  resultant 
unity  of  movement  in  the  strenuous  rivalries  and  even  an- 
tagonisms of  the  many  sects  of  the  one  church  of  Christ 
in  America  in  that  critical  quarter-century  from  the  year 
1 835  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  in  which  the  work  of 
the  church  was  suddenly  expanded  by  the  addition  of  a 
whole  empire  of  territory  on  the  west,  and  the  bringing  in 
of  a  whole  empire  of  alien  population  from  the  east,  and 
when  no  one  of  the  Christian  forces  of  the  nation  could  be 
spared  from  the  field.  The  unity  is  very  real,  and  is  visi- 
ble enough,  doubtless,  from  "the  circle  of  the  heavens." 
The  sharers  in  the  toil  and  conflict  and  the  near  spectators 
are  not  well  placed  to  observe  it.  It  will  be  for  historians 
in  some  later  century  to  study  it  in  a  truer  perspective. 

It  is  not  only  as  falling  within  this  period  of  immigra- 


THE  MORMON  IMM IGKA'IIOX.  335 

tion,  but  as  being  largely  dependent  on  its  accessions  from 
foreign  lands,  that  the  growth  of  Mormonism  is  entitled  to 
mention  in  this  chapter.  In  its  origin  Mormonism  is  dis- 
tinctly American — a  system  of  gross,  palpable  imposture 
contrived  by  a  disreputable  adventurer,  Joe  Smith,  with 
the  aid  of  three  confederates,  who  afterward  confessed  the 
fraud  and  perjury  of  which  they  had  been  guilty.  It  is  a 
shame  to  human  nature  that  the  silly  lies  put  forth  by  this 
precious  gang  should  have  found  believers.  But  the 
solemn  pretensions  to  divine  revelation,  mixed  with  ele- 
ments borrowed  from  the  prevalent  revivalism,  and  from 
the  immediate-adventism  which  so  easily  captivates  excit- 
able imaginations,  drew  a  number  of  honest  dupes  into  the 
train  of  tiie  knavish  leaders,  and  made  possible  the  pitiable 
history  which  followed.  The  chief  recruiting-grounds  for 
the  new  religion  were  not  in  America,  but  in  the  manu- 
facturing and  mining  regions  of  Great  Britain,  and  in  some 
of  the  countries,  especially  the  Scandinavian  countries,  of 
continental  Europe.  The  able  handling  of  an  emigration 
fund,  and  the  dexterous  combination  of  appeals  to  many 
passions  and  interests  at  once,  have  availed  to  draw  to- 
gether in  the  State  of  Utah  and  neighboring  regions  a  body 
of  fanatics  formidable  to  the  Republic,  not  by  their  number, 
for  they  count  only  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand, 
but  by  the  solidity  with  which  they  are  compacted  into  a 
political,  economical,  religious,  and,  at  need,  military  com- 
munity, handled  at  will  by  unscrupulous  chiefs.  It  is  only 
incidentally  that  the  strange  story  of  the  Mormons,  a  story 
singularly  dramatic  and  sometimes  tragic,  is  connected 
with  the  history  of  American  Christianity.^ 

To  this  same  period  belongs  the  beginning  of  the  im- 

i  Carroll,  "  Religious  Forces  of  the  United  States,"  pp.  165-174;  Bishop 
Tuttle,  in  "  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopcflia,"  pp.  1575-1581  ;  Professor  John 
Frascr,  in  "Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  vol.  xvi.,  pp.  825-828;  Dorchester, 
"  Christianity  in  the  United  Slates,"  pp.  538-646. 


336  AMERICA. y   CI/RISTIAXITY.  \Q\\\v.  xviii. 

migration  of  the  Chinese,  wb.ich,  hke  that  of  the  Mormons, 
becomes  by  and  by  important  to  our  subject  as  furnishing 
occasion  for  active  and  fruitful  missionary  labors. 

In  the  year  1843  culminated  the  panic  agitation  of 
Millerism.  From  the  year  1831  an  honest  Vermont 
farmer  named  William  Miller  had  been  urging  upon  the 
public,  in  pamphlets  and  lectures,  his  views  of  the  approach- 
ing advent  of  Christ  to  judgment  and  the  destruction  of 
the  world.  He  had  figured  it  out  on  the  basis  of  prophe- 
cies in  Daniel  and  the  Revelation,  and  the  great  event  was 
set  down  for  April  23,  1843.  As  the  date  drew  near  the 
excitement  of  many  became  intense.  Great  meetings 
were  held,  in  the  open  air  or  in  tents,  of  those  who  wished 
to  be  found  waiting  for  the  Lord.  Some  nobly  proved 
their  sincerity  by  the  surrender  of  their  property  for  the 
support  of  their  poorer  brethren  until  the  end  should  come. 
The  awful  day  was  awaited  with  glowing  rapture  of  hope, 
or  by  some  with  terror.  When  it  dawned  there  was  eager 
gazing  upon  the  clouds  of  heaven  to  descry  the  sign  of  the 
Son  of  man.  And  when  the  day  had  passed  without 
event  there  were  various  revulsions  of  feeHng.  The  proph- 
ets set  themselves  to  going  over  their  figures  and  fixing 
new  dates;  earnest  believers,  sobered  by  the  failure  of 
their  pious  expectations,  held  firmly  to  the  substance  of 
their  faith  and  hope,  while  no  longer  attempting  to  "  know 
times  and  seasons,  which  the  Father  hath  put  within  his 
own  power";  weak  minds  made  shipwreck  of  faith;  and 
scoffers  cried  in  derision,  "  Where  is  the  promise  of  his 
coming?"  A  monument  of  this  honest  delusion  still 
exists  in  the  not  very  considerable  sect  of  Adventists,  with 
its  subdivisions  ;  but  sympathizers  with  their  general  scheme 
of  prophetical  interpretation  are  to  be  found  among  the 
most  earnest  and  faithful  members  of  other  churches. 

Such   has  been   the  progress  of  Scriptural  knowledge 


MiLLEKlSM  AXD   SPIRITrAUSM.  337 

since  the  days  when  Farmer  Miller  went  to  work  with  his 
arithmetic  and  slate  upon  the  strange  symbols  and  enig- 
matic figures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  Apocalypses, 
that  plain  Christians  everywhere  have  now  the  means  of 
knowing  that  the  lines  of  calculation  along  which  good 
people  were  led  into  delusion  a  half-century  ago  started 
from  utterly  fallacious  premises.  It  is  to  the  fideUty  of 
critical  scholars  that  we  owe  it  that  hereafter,  except 
among  the  ignorant  and  unintelligent,  these  two  books, 
now  clearly  understood,  will  not  again  be  used  to  minister 
to  the  panic  of  a  Millerite  craze,  nor  to  furnish  vituperative 
epithets  for  antipopery  agitators. 

To  this  period  also  must  be  referred  the  rise  of  that 
system  of  necromancy  which,  originating  in  America,  has 
had  great  vogue  in  other  countries,  and  here  in  its  native 
land  has  taken  such  form  as  really  to  constitute  a  new  cult. 
Making  no  mention  of  sporadic  instances  of  what  in  earlier 
generations  would  have  been  called  (and  properly  enough) 
by  the  name  of  witchcraft,  we  find  the  beginning  of  so- 
called  "  spiritualism  "  in  the  "  Rochester  rappings,"  pro- 
duced, to  the  wonder  of  many  witnesses,  by  "the  Fox 
girls"  in  1849.  How  the  rappings  and  other  sensible 
phenomena  were  produced  was  a  curious  question,  but 
not  important;  the  main  question  was,  Did  they  convey 
communications  from  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  as  the  young 
women  alleged,  and  as  many  persons  believed  (so  they 
thought)  from  demonstrative  evidence  ?  The  mere  sug- 
gestion of  the  possibility  of  this  of  course  awakened  an 
inquisitive  and  eager  interest  everywhere.  It  became  the 
subject  of  uni\ersal  discussion  and  experiment  in  society. 
There  was  demand  for  other  "  mediums  "  to  satisfy  curi- 
osity or  aid  investigation ;  and  the  demand  at  once  pro- 
duced a  copious  supply.  The  business  of  medium  became 
a  regular  profession,  opening  a  career  especially  to  enter- 


338  AMERICAI\r  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xviii. 

prising  women.  They  began  to  draw  together  believers 
and  doubters  into  "  circles  "  and  "  seances,"  and  to  organ- 
ize permanent  associations.  At  the  end  of  ten  years  the 
"Spiritual  Register"  for  1859,  boasting  great  things,  es- 
timated the  actual  spiritualists  in  America  at  1,500,000, 
besides  4,000,000  more  partly  converted.  The  latest  cen- 
sus gives  the  total  membership  of  their  associations  as 
45,030.  But  this  moderate  figure  should  not  be  taken  as 
the  measure  of  the  influence  of  their  leading  tenet.  There 
are  not  a  few  honest  Christians  who  are  convinced  that 
communications  do  sometimes  take  place  between  the  dead 
and  the  living ;  there  are  a  great  multitude  who  are  dis- 
posed, in  a  vague  way,  to  think  there  must  be  something 
in  it.  But  there  are  few  even  of  the  earnest  devotees  of 
the  spiritualist  cult  who  will  deny  that  the  whole  business 
is  infested  with  fraud,  whether  of  dishonest  mediums  or 
of  lying  spirits.  Of  late  years  the  general  public  has  come 
into  possession  of  material  for  independent  judgment  on 
this  point.  An  earnest  spiritualist,  a  man  of  wealth,  named 
Seybert,  dying,  left  to  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  a 
legacy  of  sixty  thousand  dollars,  on  condition  that  the  uni- 
versity should  appoint  a  commission  to  investigate  the 
claims  of  spiritualism.  A  commission  was  appointed  which 
left  nothing  to  be  desired  in  point  of  ability,  integrity,  and 
impartiality.  Under  the  presidency  of  the  renowned  Pro- 
fessor Joseph  Leidy,  and  with  the  aid  and  advice  of  lead- 
ing believers  in  spiritualism,  they  made  a  long,  patient, 
faithful  investigation,  the  processes  and  results  of  which 
are  published  in  a  most  amusing  little  volume.^  The  gist 
of  their  report  may  be  briefly  summed  up.  Every  case 
of  alleged  communication  from  the  world  of  departed 
spirits  that  was  investigated  by  the  commission  (and  they 
were  guided  in  their  .selection  of  cases  by  the  advice  of 

1  "  Report  of  the  Seybert  Commission,"  Philadelphia,  Lippincott. 


FRAUDS  IX  SPIRITUALISM.  339 

eminent  and  respectable  believers  in  spiritualism)  was  dis- 
covered and  demonstrated  to  be  a  case  of  gross,  willful 
attempted  fraud.  The  evidence  is  strong  that  the  organ- 
ized system  of  spiritualism  in  America,  with  its  associations 
and  lyceums  and  annual  camp-meetings,  and  its  itinerancy 
of  mediums  and  trance  speakers,  is  a  system  of  mere  im- 
posture. In  the  honest  simplicity  of  many  of  its  followers, 
and  in  the  wicked  mendacity  of  its  leaders,  it  seems  to  be 
on  a  par  with  the  other  American  contribution  to  the  re- 
ligions of  the  world,  Mormonism. 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

THE  CIVIL  WAR — ANTECEDENTS  AND  CONSEQUENCES. 

It  has  been  observed  that  for  nearly  half  a  generation 
after  the  reaction  began  from  the  fervid  excitement  of  the 
Millerite  agitation  no  season  of  general  revival  was  known 
in  the  American  church. 

These  were  years  of  immense  material  prosperity,  "  the 
golden  age  of  our  history."  ^  The  wealth  of  the  nation  in 
that  time  far  more  than  doubled ;  its  railroad  mileage 
more  than  threefolded ;  population  moved  westward  with 
rapidity  and  volume  beyond  precedent.  Between  1845 
and  i860  there  were  admitted  seven  new  States  and  four 
organized  Territories. 

Withal  it  was  a  time  of  continually  deepening  intensity 
of  political  agitation.  The  patchwork  of  compromises  and 
settlements  contrived  by  make-shift  politicians  like  Clay 
and  Douglas  would  not  hold ;  they  tore  out,  and  the  rent 
was  made  worse.  Part  of  the  Compromise  of  1850,  which 
was  to  be  something  altogether  sempiternal,  was  a  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law  so  studiously  base  and  wicked  in  its  provi- 
sions as  to  stir  the  indignation  of  just  and  generous  men 
whenever  it  was  enforced,  and  to  instruct  and  strengthen 
and  consolidate  an  intelHgent  and  conscientious  opposition 

1  E.  B.  Andrews,  "  History  of  the  United  States,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  66. 
340 


• '  THE   KAKSA S   CRl'SADF.:'  3 4 1 

to  slavery  as  not  a  century  of  antislavery  lecturing  and 
pamphleteering  could  have  done.  Four  years  later  the 
sagacious  Stephen  Douglas  introduced  into  Congress  his 
ingenious  permanent  pacification  scheme  for  taking  the 
slavery  question  "  out  of  politics  "  by  perfidiously  repeal- 
ing the  act  under  which  the  western  Territories  had  for 
the  third  part  of  a  century  been  pledged  to  freedom,  and 
leaving  the  question  of  freedom  or  slavery  to  be  decided 
by  the  first  settlers  upon  the  soil.  It  was  understood  on 
both  sides  that  the  effect  of  this  measure  would  be  to  turn 
over  the  soil  of  Kansas  to  slavery  ;  and  for  a  moment  there 
was  a  calm  that  did  almost  seem  hke  peace.  But  the 
providential  man  for  the  emergency,  Eli  Thayer,  boldly 
accepted  the  challenge  under  all  the  disadvantageous  con- 
ditions, and  appealed  to  the  friends  of  freedom  and  right- 
eousness to  stand  by  him  in  "  the  Kansas  Crusade."  The 
appeal  was  to  the  same  Christian  sentiment  which  had  just 
uttered  its  vain  protest,  through  the  almost  unanimous 
voice  of  the  ministers  of  the  gospel,  against  the  opening 
of  the  Territories  to  the  possibility  of  slavery.  It  was 
taken  up  in  the  solemn  spirit  of  religious  duty.  None 
who  were  present  are  likely  to  forget  the  scene  when  the 
emigrants  from  New  Haven  assembled  in  the  North  Church 
to  be  sped  on  their  way  with  prayer  and  benediction  ;  how 
the  vast  multitude  were  thrilled  by  the  noble  eloquence  of 
Beecher,  and  how  money  came  out  of  pocket  when  it  was 
proposed  to  equip  the  colonists  with  arms  for  self-defense 
against  the  ferocity  of  "border  ruffians."  There  were 
scenes  like  this  in  many  a  church  and  country  prayer- 
meeting,  where  Christian  hearts  did  not  forget  to  pray 
"for  them  in  bonds,  as  bound  with  them."  There  took 
place  such  a  religious  emigration  as  America  had  not  known 
since  the  days  of  the  first  colonists.  They  went  forth 
singing  the  words  of  Whittier : 


342  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xix. 

We  cross  the  prairies  as  of  old 

Our  fathers  crossed  the  sea, 
To  make  the  West,  as  they  the  East, 

The  empire  of  the  free. 

Those  were  choice  companies ;  it  was  said  that  in  some  of 
their  settlements  every  third  man  was  a  college  graduate. 
Thus  it  was  that,  not  all  at  once,  but  after  desperate  tribu- 
lations, Kansas  was  saved  for  freedom.  It  was  the  turning- 
point  in  the  "irrepressible  conflict."  The  beam  of  the 
scales,  which  politicians  had  for  forty  years  been  trying  to 
hold  level,  dipped  in  favor  of  liberty  and  justice,  and  it 
was  hopeless  thenceforth  to  restore  the  balance,^ 

Neither  of  the  two  characteristics  of  this  time,  the 
abounding  material  prosperity  or  the  turbid  political  agi- 
tation, was  favorable  to  that  fixed  attention  to  spiritual 
themes  which  promotes  the  revival  of  religion.  But  the 
conditions  were  about  to  be  suddenly  changed. 

Suddenly,  in  the  fall  of  1857,  came  a  business  revulsion. 
Hard  times  followed.  Men  had  leisure  for  thought  and 
prayer,  and  anxieties  that  they  were  fain  to  cast  upon 
God,  seeking  help  and  direction.  The  happy  thought 
occurred  to  a  good  man,  Jeremiah  Lanphier,  in  the  em- 
ploy of  the  old  North  Dutch  Church  in  New  York,  to 
open  a  room  in  the  "  consistory  building  "  in  Fulton  Street 
as  an  oratory  for  the  common  prayer  of  so  many  business 
men  as  might  be  disposed  to  gather  there  in  the  hour  from 
twelve  to  one  o'clock,  "  with  one  accord  to  make  their 
common  supplications."  The  invitation  was  responded  to 
at  first  by  hardly  more  than  "  two  or  three."  The  num- 
ber grew.  The  room  overflowed.  A  second  room  was 
opened,  and  then  a  third,  in  the  same  building,  till  all  its 
walls  resounded  with  prayer  and  song.     The  example  was 

1  Read  "  The  Kansas  Crusade,"  by  Eli  Thayer,  Harpers,  New  York, 
1889.  It  is  lively  reading,  and  indispensable  to  a  full  understanding  of  this 
part  of  the  national  history. 


THE   REVIVAL    OE  1857.  343 

followed  until  at  one  time,  in  the  spring  of  1858,  no  fewer 
than  twenty  "daily  union  prayer-meetings  "  were  sustained 
in  different  parts  of  the  city.  Besides  these,  there  was 
preaching  at  unwonted  times  and  places.  Burton's  Thea- 
ter, on  Chambers  Street,  in  the  thick  of  the  business 
houses,  was  thronged  with  eager  listeners  to  the  rudimen- 
tal  truths  of  personal  religion,  expounded  and  applied  by 
great  preachers.  Everywhere  the  cardinal  topics  of  prac- 
tical religious  duty,  repentance  and  Christian  faith,  were 
themes  of  social  conversation.  All  churches  and  ministers 
were  full  of  activity  and  hope.  "They  that  feared  the 
Lord  spake  often  one  with  another." 

What  was  true  of  New  York  was  true,  in  its  measure, 
of  every  city,  village,  and  hamlet  in  the  land.  It  was  the 
Lord's  doing,  marvelous  in  men's  eyes.  There  was  no 
human  leadership  or  concert  of  action  in  bringing  it  about. 
It  came.  Not  only  were  there  no  notable  evangelists 
traveling  the  country ;  even  the  pastors  of  churches  did 
little  more  than  enter  zealously  into  their  happy  duty  in 
things  made  ready  to  their  hand.  Elsewhere,  as  at  New 
York,  the  work  began  with  the  spontaneous  gathering  of" 
private  Christians,  stirred  by  an  unseen  influence.  Two 
circumstances  tended  to  promote  the  diffusion  of  the  re- 
vival. The  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  then  a 
recent  but  rapidly  spreading  institution,  furnished  a  natu- 
ral center  in  each  considerable  town  for  mutual  consulta- 
tion and  mutual  incitement  among  young  men  of  various 
sects.  For  this  was  another  trait  of  the  revival,  that  it 
went  forward  as  a  tide  movement  of  the  whole  church,  in 
disregard  of  the  dividing-lines  of  sect.  I  know  not  what 
Christian  communion,  if  any,  was  unaffected  by  it.  The 
other  favorable  circumstance  was  the  business  interest 
taken  in  the  revival  by  the  secular  press.  Up  to  this  time 
the  church  had  been  little  accustomed  to  look  for  coopera- 


344  AMERICAX  CHRISTIAXITY.  [Chap.  xix. 

tion  to  the  newspaper,  unless  it  was  the  religious  weekly. 
But  at  this  time  that  was  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  of  the 
prophet,  that  "  holiness  to  the  Lord  "  should  be  written 
upon  the  trains  of  commerce  and  upon  all  secular  things. 
The  sensation  head-lines  in  enterprising  journals  proclaimed 
"  Revival  News,"  and  smart  reporters  were  detailed  to  the 
prayer-meeting  or  the  sermon,  as  having  greater  popular 
interest,  for  the  time,  than  the  criminal  trial  or  the  politi- 
cal debate.  Such  papers  as  the  "Tribune"  and  the 
"  Herald,"  laying  on  men's  breakfast- tables  and  counting- 
room  desks  the  latest  pungent  word  from  the  noon  prayer- 
meeting  or  the  evening  sermon,  did  the  work  of  many 
tract  societies. 

As  the  immediate  result  of  the  revival  of  1857-58  it 
has  been  estimated  that  one  milHon  of  members  were 
added  to  the  fellowship  of  the  churches.  But  the  ulterior 
result  was  greater.  This  revival  was  the  introduction  to 
a  new  era  of  the  nation's  spiritual  life.  It  was  the  train- 
ing-school for  a  force  of  lay  evangelists  for  future  work, 
eminent  among  whom  is  the  name  of  Dwight  Moody. 
And,  like  the  Great  Awakening  of  1 740,  it  was  the  provi- 
dential preparation  of  the  American  church  for  an  imme- 
diately impending  peril  the  gravity  of  which  there  were 
none  at  the  time  far-sighted  enough  to  predict.  Looking 
backward,  it  is  instructive  for  us  to  raise  the  question  how 
the  church  would  have  passed  through  the  decade  of  the 
sixties  without  the  spiritual  reinforcement  that  came  to  it 
amid  the  pentecostal  scenes  of  1857  and  1858. 

And  yet  there  were  those  among  the  old  men  who  were 
ready  to  weep  as  they  compared  the  building  of  the  Lord's 
house  with  what  they  had  known  in  their  younger  days : 
no  sustained  enforcement  on  the  mind  and  conscience  of 
alarming  and  heart-searching  doctrines ;  no  "  protracted 
meetings  "  in  which  from  day  to  day  the  warnings  and  in- 


REVIVAL  AND  DISUNION.  345 

vitations  of  the  gospel  were  set  forth  before  the  hesitating 
mind  ;  in  the  converts  no  severe  and  thorough  "  law- work," 
from  the  agonizing  throes  of  which  the  soul  was  with  no 
brief  travail  born  to  newness  of  life ;  but  the  free  invita- 
tion, the  ready  and  glad  acceptance,  the  prompt  enroll- 
ment on  the  Lord's  side.  Did  not  these  things  betoken 
a  superficial  piety,  springing  up  like  seed  in  the  thin  soil 
of  rocky  places  ?  It  was  a  question  for  later  years  to  an- 
swer, and  perhaps  we  have  not  the  whole  of  the  answer 
yet.  Certainly  the  work  was  not  as  in  the  days  of  Edwards 
and  Brainerd,  nor  as  in  the  days  of  Nettleton  and  Finney  ; 
was  it  not,  perhaps,  more  like  the  work  in  the  days  of 
Barnabas  and  Paul  and  Peter? 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  spiritual  quickening  of  1857 
had  any  effect  in  allaying  the  sharp  controversy  between 
northern  and  southern  Christians  on  the  subject  of  slavery. 
Perhaps  it  may  have  deepened  and  intensified  it.  The 
"  southern  apostasy,"  from  principles  universally  accepted 
in  1818,  had  become  complete  and  (so  far  as  any  utterance 
was  permitted  to  reach  the  public)  unanimous.  The 
southern  Methodists  and  the  southern  Baptists  had,  a 
dozen  years  before,  relieved  themselves  from  liability  to 
rebuke,  whether  express  or  implied,  from  their  northern 
brethren  for  complicity  with  the  crimes  involved  in  slav- 
ery, by  seceding  from  fellowship.  Into  the  councils  of  the 
Episcopalians  and  the  Catholics  this  great  question  of 
public  morality  was  never  allowed  to  enter.  The  Pres- 
byterians were  divided  into  two  bodies,  each  having  its 
northern  and  its  southern  presbyteries ;  and  the  course  of 
events  in  these  two  bodies  may  be  taken  as  an  indication 
of  the  drift  of  opinion  and  feeling.  The  Old-School 
body,  having  a  strong  southern  element,  remained  silent, 
notwithstanding  the  open  nullification  of  its  declaration 


346  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xix. 

of  1818  by  the  presbytery  of  Harmony,  S.  C,  resolv- 
ing that  "  the  existence  of  slavery  is  not  opposed  to  the 
will  of  God,"  and  the  synod  of  Virginia  declaring  that 
"  the  General  Assembly  had  no  right  to  declare  that  re- 
lation sinful  u'hich  Christ  and  his  apostles  teach  to  be  con- 
sistent with  the  most  unquestionable  piety."  The  New- 
School  body,  patient  and  considerate  toward  its  southern 
presbyteries,  did  not  fail,  nevertheless,  to  reassert  the 
principles  of  righteousness,  and  in  1850  it  declared  slave- 
holding  to  h^  prima  facie  a  subject  of  the  discipline  of  the 
church.  In  1853  it  called  upon  its  southern  presbyteries  to 
report  what  had  been  done  in  the  case.  One  of  them  re- 
plied defiantly  that  its  ministers  and  church-members  were 
slave-holders  by  choice  and  on  principle.  When  the 
General  Assembly  condemned  this  utterance,  the  entire 
southern  part  of  the  church  seceded  and  set  up  a  separate 
jurisdiction.^ 

There  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  the  entire  sincerity  with 
which  the  southern  church,  in  all  its  sects,  had  consecrated 
itself  with  religious  devotion  to  the  maintenance  of  that 
horrible  and  inhuman  form  of  slavery  which  had  drawn 
upon  itself  the  condemnation  of  the  civiHzed  world.  The 
earnest  antislavery  convictions  which  had  characterized  it 
only  twenty-five  years  before,  violently  suppressed  from 
utterance,  seem  to  have  perished  by  suffocation.  The 
common  sentiment  of  southern  Christianity  was  expressed 
in  that  serious  declaration  of  the  Southern  Presbyterian 
Church,  during  the  war,  of  its  "  deep  conviction  of  the 
divine  appointment  of  domestic  servitude,"  and  of  the 
"  peculiar  mission  of  the  southern  church  to  conserve  the 
institution  of  slavery."  2 

1  Thompson,  "  The  Presbyterians,"  p.  135. 

2  "  Narrative  of  the  State  of  Religion  "  of  the  Southern  General  Assembly 
of  1864. 


IMPEXDING    THREATS   OF    WAR.  347 

At  the  North,  on  the  other  hand,  with  larger  liberty, 
there  was  wider  diversity  of  opinion.  In  general,  the  effect 
of  continued  discussion,  of  larger  knowledge  of  facts,  and 
of  the  enforcement  on  the  common  conscience,  by  the 
course  of  public  events,  of  a  sense  of  responsibility  and 
duty  in  the  matter,  had  been  to  make  more  intelligent, 
sober,  and  discriminating,  and  therefore  more  strong  and 
steadfast,  the  resolution  to  keep  clear  of  all  complicity  with 
slavery.  There  were  few  to  assume  the  defense  of  that 
odious  system,  though  there  were  some.  There  were 
many  to  object  to  scores  of  objectionable  things  in  the 
conduct  of  abolitionists.  And  there  were  a  very  great 
number  of  honest,  conscientious  men  who  were  appalled 
as  they  looked  forward  to  the  boldly  threatened  conse- 
quences of  even  the  mildest  action  in  opposition  to  slav- 
ery— the  rending  of  the  church,  the  ruin  of  the  country, 
the  horrors  of  civil  war,  and  its  uncertain  event,  issuing 
perhaps  in  the  wider  extension  and  firmer  establishment 
of  slavery  itself.  It  was  an  immense  power  that  the  bold, 
resolute,  rule-or-ruin  supporters  of  the  divine  right  of 
slavery  held  over  the  Christian  public  of  the  whole  coun- 
try, so  long  as  they  could  keep  these  threats  suspended  in 
the  air.  It  seemed  to  hold  in  the  balance  against  a  sim- 
ple demand  to  execute  righteousness  toward  a  poor,  op- 
pressed, and  helpless  race,  immense  interests  of  patriotism, 
of  humanity,  of  the  kingdom  of  God  itself.  Presently  the 
time  came  when  these  threats  could  no  longer  be  kept 
aloft.  The  compliance  demanded  was  clearly,  decisively 
refused.  The  threats  must  either  be  executed  or  must  fall 
to  the  ground  amid  general  derision.  But  the  moment 
that  the  threat  was  put  in  execution  its  power  as  a  threat 
had  ceased.  With  the  first  stroke  against  the  life  of  the 
nation  all  great  and  noble  motives,  instead  of  being  bal- 
anced against  each  other,  were  drawing  together  in  the 


348  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xix. 

same  direction.  It  ought  not  to  have  been  a  surprise  to 
the  religious  leaders  of  disunion,  ecclesiastical  and  politi- 
cal, to  find  that  those  who  had  most  anxiously  deprecated 
the  attack  upon  the  government  should  be  among  the 
most  earnest  and  resolute  to  repel  the  attack  when  made. 

No  man  can  read  the  history  of  the  American  church  in 
the  Civil  War  intelligently  who  does  not  apprehend,  how- 
ever great  the  effort,  that  the  Christian  people  of  the  South 
did  really  and  sincerely  believe  themselves  to  be  commis- 
sioned by  the  providence  of  God  to  "  conserve  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery  "  as  an  institution  of  "divine appointment," 
Strange  as  the  conviction  seems,  it  is  sure  that  the  convic- 
tion of  conscience  in  the  southern  army  that  it  was  right 
in  waging  war  against  the  government  of  the  country  was 
as  clear  as  the  conviction,  on  the  other  side,  of  the  duty 
of  defending  the  government.  The  southern  regiments, 
like  the  northern,  were  sent  forth  with  prayer  and  bene- 
diction, and  their  camps,  as  well  as  those  of  their  adver- 
saries, were  often  the  seats  of  earnest  religious  Hfe.^ 

At  the  South  the  entire  able-bodied  population  was  soon 
called  into  military  service,  so  that  almost  the  whole 
church  was  in  the  army.  At  the  North  the  churches  at 
home  hardly  seemed  diminished  by  the  myriads  sent  to 
the  field.  It  was  amazing  to  see  the  charities  and  missions 
of  the  churches  sustained  with  almost  undiminished  sup- 
plies, while  the  great  enterprises  of  the  Sanitary  and 
Christian  Commissions  were  set  on  foot  and  magnificently 
carried  forward,  for  the  physical,  social,  and  spiritual  good 
of  the  soldiers.  Never  was  the  gift  of  giving  so  abun- 
dantly bestowed  on  the  church  as  in  these  stormy  times. 
There  was  a  feverish  eagerness  of  life  in  all  ways;  if  there 

1  For  interesting  illustrations  of  this,  see  Alexander,  "  The  Methodists, 
South,"  pp.  71-75.  The  history  of  the  religious  life  of  the  northern  army 
is  superabundant  and  everywhere  accessible. 


THE   CHURCH  IN   WAR-TIME.  349 

was  a  too  eager  haste  to  make  money  among  those  that 
could  be  spared  for  business,  there  was  a  generous  readi- 
ness in  bestowing  it.  The  little  faith  that  expected  to 
cancel  and  retrench,  especially  in  foreign  missions,  in  which 
it  took  sometimes  three  dollars  in  the  collection  to  put  one 
dollar  into  the  work,  was  rebuked  by  the  rising  of  the 
church  to  the  height  of  the  exigency. 

One  religious  lesson  that  was  learned  as  never  before, 
on  both  sides  of  the  conflict,  was  the  lesson  of  Christian 
fellowship  as  against  the  prevailing  folly  of  sectarian  di- 
visions, emulations,  and  jealousies.  There  were  great 
drawings  in"  this  direction  in  the  early  days  of  the  war, 
when  men  of  the  most  unlike  antecedents  and  associations 
gathered  on  the  same  platform,  intent  on  the  same  work, 
and  mutual  aversions  and  partisan  antagonisms  melted 
away  in  the  fervent  heat  of  a  common  religious  patriotism. 
But  the  lesson  which  was  commended  at  home  was  en- 
forced in  the  camp  and  the  regiment  by  constraint  of  cir- 
cumstances. The  army  chaplain,  however  one-sided  he 
might  have  been  in  his  parish,  had  to  be  on  all  sides  with 
his  kindly  sympathy  as  soon  as  he  joined  his  regiment. 
He  learned  in  a  right  apostolic  sense  to  become  all  things 
to  all  men,  and,  returning  home,  he  did  not  forget  the 
lesson.  The  delight  of  a  fellowship  truly  catholic  in  the 
one  work  of  Christ,  once  tasted,  was  not  easily  foregone. 
Already  the  current,  perplexed  with  eddies,  had  begun  to 
set  in  the  direction  of  Christian  unity.  How  much  the 
common  labors  of  Christian  men  and  women  and  Christian 
ministers  of  every  different  name,  through  the  five  years 
of  bloody  strife,  contributed  to  swell  and  speed  the  cur- 
rent, no  one  can  measure. 

According  to  a  well-known  law  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  the  intense  experiences  of  the  war,  both  in  the 
army  and  out  of  it,  left  no  man  just  as  he  was  before. 


350  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xix. 

To  "  them  that  were  exercised  thereby  "  they  brought 
great  promotion  in  the  service  of  the  King.  The  cases  are 
not  few  nor  inconspicuous  of  men  coming  forth  from  the 
temptations  and  the  discipline  of  the  military  service  every 
way  stronger  and  better  Christians  than  they  entered  it. 
The  whole  church  gained  higher  conceptions  of  the  joy 
and  glory  of  self-sacrifice,  and  deeper  and  more  vivid  in- 
sight into  the  significance  of  vicarious  suffering  and  death. 
The  war  was  a  rude  school  of  theology,  but  it  taught  some 
things  well.  The  church  had  need  of  all  that  it  could  learn, 
in  preparation  for  the  tasks  and  trials  that  were  before  it. 
There  were  those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  emerged 
from  the  military  service  depraved  and  brutalized ;  and 
those  who,  in  the  rush  of  business  incidental  to  the  war, 
were  not  trained  to  self-sacrifice  and  duty,  but  habituated 
to  the  seeking  of  selfish  interests  in  the  midst  of  the  pub- 
lic peril  and  affliction.  We  delight  in  the  evidences  that 
these  cases  were  a  small  proportion  of  the  whole.  But 
even  a  small  percentage  of  so  many  hundreds  of  thousands 
mounts  up  to  a  formidable  total.  The  early  years  of  the 
peace  were  so  marked  by  crimes  of  violence  that  a  frequent 
heading  in  the  daily  newspapers  was  "  The  Carnival  of 
Crime."  Prosperity,  or  the  semblance  of  it,  came  in  like 
a  sudden  flood.  Immigration  of  an  improved  character 
poured  into  the  country  in  greater  volume  than  ever. 
Multitudes  made  haste  to  be  rich,  and  fell  into  temptations 
and  snares.     The  perilous  era  of  enormous  fortunes  began. 


CHAPTER   XX. 

AFTER   THE  WAR. 

When  the  five  years  of  rending  and  tearing  had  passed, 
in  which  slavery  was  dispossessed  of  its  hold  upon  the 
nation,  there  was  much  to  be  done  in  reconstructing  and 
readjusting  the  religious  institutions  of  the  country. 

Throughout  the  seceding  States  buildings  and  endow- 
ments for  religious  uses  had  suffered  in  the  general  waste 
and  destruction  of  property.  Colleges  and  seminaries,  in 
many  instances,  had  seen  their  entire  resources  swept  away 
through  investment  in  the  hopeless  promises  of  the  de- 
feated government.  Churches,  boards,  and  like  associa- 
tions were  widely  disorganized  through  the  vicissitudes  of 
military  occupation  and  the  protracted  absence  or  the  death 
of  men  of  experience  and  capacity. 

The  effect  of  the  war  upon  denominational  organizations 
had  been  various.  There  was  no  sect  of  all  the  church 
the  members  and  ministers  of  which  had  not  felt  the  sweep 
of  the  currents  of  popular  opinion  all  about  them.  But 
the  course  of  events  in  each  denomination  was  in  some 
measure  illustrative  of  the  character  of  its  polity. 

In  the  Roman  Catholic  Cliurch  the  antagonisms  of  the 

conflict  were  as  keenly  felt   as   anywhere.     Archbishop 

Hughes  of  New  York,  who,  with  Henry  Ward  Beecher 

and  Bishop  Mclh'aine  of  Ohio,  accepted  a  political  mission 

351 


352  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xx. 

from  President  Lincoln,  was  not  more  distinctly  a  Union 
man  than  Bishop  Lynch  of  Charleston  was  a  secessionist. 
But  the  firm  texture  of  the  hierarchical  organization, 
held  steadily  in  place  by  a  central  authority  outside  of  the 
national  boundaries,  prevented  any  organic  rupture.  The 
Catholic  Church  in  America  was  eminently  fortunate  at 
one  point :  the  famous  bull  Quanta  Cura,  with  its  ap- 
pended "  Syllabus  "  of  damnable  errors,  in  which  almost 
all  the  essential  characteristics  of  the  institutions  of  the 
American  Republic  are  anathematized,  was  fulminated  in 
1864,  when  people  in  the  United  States  had  little  time  to 
think  of  ecclesiastical  events  taking  place  at  such  a  distance. 
If  this  extraordinary  document  had  been  first  published  in 
a  time  of  peace,  and  freely  discussed  in  the  newspapers  of 
the  time,  it  could  hardly  have  failed  to  inflict  the  most 
serious  embarrassment  on  the  interests  of  Catholicism  in 
America.  Even  now  it  keeps  the  Catholic  clergy  in  a 
constantly  explanatory  attitude  to  show  that  the  Syllabus 
does  not  really  mean  what  to  the  ordinary  reader  it  un- 
mistakably seems  to  mean  ;  and  the  work  of  explanation 
is  made  the  more  necessary  and  the  more  difficult  by  the 
decree  of  papal  infallibility,  which  followed  the  Syllabus 
after  a  few  years. 

Simply  on  the  ground  of  a  de  facto  political  indepen- 
dence, the  southern  dioceses  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church,  following  the  principles  and  precedents  of  1789. 
organized  themselves  into  a  "  Church  in  the  Confederate 
States."  One  of  the  southern  bishops,  Polk,  of  Louisiana, 
accepted  a  commission  of  major-general  in  the  Confederate 
army,  and  relieved  his  brethren  of  any  disciplinary  ques- 
tions that  might  have  arisen  in  consequence  by  dying  on 
the  field  from  a  cannon-shot.  With  admirable  tact  and 
good  temper,  the  "  Church  in  the  United  States  "  managed 
to   ignore    the    existence    of    any   secession;    and   when 


HECOXSTRL'CT/OXS.  353. 

the  alleged  de  facto  independence  ceased,  the  seceding 
bishops  and  their  dioceses  dropped  quietly  back  into  place 
without  leaving  a  trace  of  the  secession  upon  the  record. 

The  southern  organizations  of  the  Methodists  and 
Baptists  were  of  twenty  years'  standing  at  the  close  of  the 
war  in  1865.  The  war  had  abolished  the  original  cause 
of  these  divisions,  but  it  had  substituted  others  quite  as 
serious.  The  exasperations  of  the  war,  and  the  still  more 
acrimonious  exasperations  of  the  period  of  the  political 
reconstruction  and  of  the  organization  of  northern  missions 
at  the  South,  gendered  strifes  that  still  delay  the  redin- 
tegration which  is  so  visibly  future  of  both  of  these  divided 
denominations. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  one  of  the  most  important 
of  the  denominations  that  still  retained  large  northern  and 
southern  memberships  in  the  same  fellowship  was  the  Old- 
School  Presbyterian  Church ;  and  no  national  sect  had 
made  larger  concessions  to  avert  a  breach  of  unity.  When 
the  General  Assembly  met  at  Philadelphia  in  May,  1861, 
amid  the  intense  excitements  of  the  opening  war,  it  was 
still  the  hope  of  the  habitual  leaders  and  managers  of  the 
Assembly  to  avert  a  division  by  holding  back  that  body 
from  any  expression  of  sentiment  on  the  question  on 
which  the  minds  of  Christians  were  stirred  at  that  time 
with  a  profound  and  most  religious  fervor.  But  the  As- 
sembly took  the  matter  out  of  the  hands  of  its  leaders,  and 
by  a  great  majority,  in  the  words  of  a  solemn  and  tem- 
perate resolution  drawn  by  the  venerable  and  conservative 
Dr.  Gardiner  Spring,  declared  its  loyalty  to  the  govern- 
ment and  constitution  of  the  country.  With  expressions 
of  horror  at  the  sacrilege  of  taking  the  church  into  the 
domain  of  politics,  southern  presbyteries  one  after  another 
renounced  the  jurisdiction  of  the  General  Assembly  that 
could  be  guilty  of  so  shocking  a  profanation,  and,  uniting 


354  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xx. 

in  a  General  Assembly  of  their  own,  proceeded  with  great 
promptitude  to  make  equally  emphatic  deliverances  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  same  political  question.^  But  nice 
logical  consistency  and  accurate  working  within  the  lines 
of  a  church  theory  were  more  than  could  reasonably  be 
expected  of  a  people  in  so  pitiable  a  plight.  The  diflfer- 
ence  on  the  subject  of  the  right  function  of  the  church 
continued  to  be  held  as  the  ground  for  continuing  the 
separation  from  the  General  Assembly  after  the  alleged 
ground  in  political  geography  had  ceased  to  be  valid ;  the 
working  motive  for  it  was  more  obvious  in  the  unfraternal 
and  almost  wantonly  exasperating  course  of  the  national 
General  Assembly  during  the  war ;  but  the  best  justifica- 
tion for  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  effective  and  useful  work- 
ing of  the  Southern  Presbyterian  Church.  Considering 
the  impoverishment  and  desolation  of  the  southern  coun- 
try, the  record  of  useful  and  self-denying  work  accom- 
plished by  this  body,  not  only  at  home,  but  in  foreign 
fields,  is,  from  its  beginning,  an  immensely  honorable  one. 
Another  occasion  of  reconstruction  was  the  strong  dis- 
position of  the  liberated  negroes  to  withdraw  themselves 
from  the  tutelage  of  the  churches  in  which  they  had  been 
held,  in  the  days  of  slavery,  in  a  lower-caste  relation.  The 
eager  entrance  of  the  northern  churches  upon  mission 
work  among  the  blacks,  to  which  access  had  long  been 
barred  by  atrocious  laws  and  by  the  savage  fury  of  mobs, 
tended  to  promote  this  change.  The  multiplication  and 
growth  of  organized  negro  denominations  is  a  characteris- 
tic of  the  period  after  the  war.  There  is  reason  to  hope 
that  the  change  may  by  and  by,  with  the  advance  of  edu- 
cation and  moral  training  among  this  people,  inure  to  their 
spiritual  advantage.  There  is  equal  reason  to  fear  that  at 
present,  in  many  cases,  it  works  to  their  serious  detriment. 

1  Thompson,  "  The  Presbyterians,"  chap.  xiii. ;  Johnson,  "  The  Southern 
Presbyterians,"  chap.  v. 


SC/r/SAfS  HEALED.  355 

The  effect  of  the  war  was  not  exclusively  divisive.  In 
two  instances,  at  least,  it  had  the  effect  of  healing  old 
schisms.  The  southern  secession  from  the  New-School 
Presbyterian  Church,  which  had  come  away  in  1858  on  the 
slavery  issue,  found  itself  in  1861  side  by  side  with  the 
southern  secession  from  the  Old  School,  and  in  full  agree- 
ment with  it  in  morals  and  politics.  The  two  bodies  were 
not  long  in  finding  that  the  doctrinal  differences  which  a 
quarter-century  before  had  seemed  so  insuperable  were, 
after  all,  no  serious  hindrance  to  their  coming  together. 

Even  after  the  war  was  over,  its  healing  power  was  felt, 
this  time  at  the  North.  There  was  a  honeycomb  for  Sam- 
son in  the  carcass  of  the  monster.  The  two  great  Pres- 
byterian sects  at  the  North  had  found  a  common  comfort 
in  their  relief  from  the  perpetual  festering  irritation  of  the 
slavery  question ;  they  had  softened  toward  each  other  in 
the  glow  of  a  religious  patriotism ;  they  had  forgotten  old 
antagonisms  in  common  labors ;  and  new  issues  had  ob- 
scured the  tenuous  doctrinal  disputes  that  had  agitated  the 
continent  in  1837.  Both  parties  grew  tired  and  ashamed 
of  the  long  and  sometimes  ill-natured  quarrel.  With  such 
a  disposition  on  both  sides,  terms  of  agreement  could  not 
fail  in  time  to  be  found.  For  substance,  the  basis  of  re- 
union was  this:  that  the  New-School  church  should  yield 
the  point  of  organization,  and  the  Old-School  church 
should  yield  the  point  of  doctrine;  the  New-School  men 
should  sustain  the  Old-School  boards,  and  the  Old-School 
men  should  tolerate  the  New-School  heresies.  The  con- 
solidation of  the  two  sects  into  one  powerful  organization 
was  consummated  at  Pittsburg,  November  12,  1869,  with 
every  demonstration  of  joy  and  devout  thanksgiving. 

One  important  denomination,  the  Congregationalists, 
had  had  the  distinguished  advantage,  through  all  these 
turbulent  years,  of  having  no  southern  membership.  Out 
of  all  proportion  to  its  numerical  strength  was  the  part 


356  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xx. 

which  it  took  in  those  missions  to  the  neglected  popula- 
tions of  the  southern  country  into  which  the  various  de- 
nominations, both  of  the  South  and  of  the  North,  entered 
with  generous  emulation  while  yet  the  war  was  still  wag- 
ing. Always  leaders  in  advanced  education,  they  not 
only,  acting  through  the  American  Missionary  Association, 
provided  for  primary  and  secondary  schools  for  the  negroes, 
but  promoted  the  foundation  of  institutions  of  higher,  and 
even  of  the  higliest,  grade  at  Hampton,  at  Atlanta,  at 
Tuskegee,  at  New  Orleans,  at  Nashville,  and  at  Washing- 
ton. Many  noble  lives  have  been  consecrated  to  this  most 
Christlike  work  of  lifting  up  the  depressed.  None  will 
grudge  a  word  of  exceptional  eulogy  to  the  memory  of 
that  splendid  character.  General  Samuel  C.  Armstrong, 
son  of  one  of  the  early  missionaries  to  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  who  poured  his  inspiring  soul  into  the  building 
up  of  the  "  Normal  Institute  "  at  Hampton,  Va.,  thus  not 
only  rearing  a  visible  monument  of  his  labor  in  the  en- 
during buildings  of  that  great  and  useful  institution,  but 
also  establishing  his  memory,  for  as  long  as  human  grati- 
tude can  endure,  in  the  hearts  of  hundreds  of  young  men 
and  young  women,  negro  and  Indian,  whose  lives  are  the 
better  and  nobler  for  their  having  known  him  as  their 
teacher. 

It  cannot  be  justly  claimed  for  the  Congregationalists  of 
the  present  day  that  they  have  lost  nothing  of  that  cor- 
porate unselfishness,  seeking  no  sectarian  aggrandizement, 
but  only  God's  reign  and  righteousness,  which  had  been 
the  glory  of  their  fathers.  The  studious  efforts  that  have 
been  made  to  cultivate  among  them  a  sectarian  .spirit,  as 
if  this  were  one  of  the  Christian  virtues,  have  not  been 
fruitless.  Nevertheless  it  may  be  seen  that  their  work  of 
education  at  the  South  has  been  conducted  in  no  narrow 
spirit.     The  extending  of  their  sect  over  new  territory  has 


MISSIONS  AT  THE   SOUTH.  ^57 

been  a  most  trivial  and  unimportant  result  of  their  wide- 
spread and  efficient  work.  A  far  greater  result  has  been 
the  promotion  among  the  colored  people  of  a  better  edu- 
cation, a  higher  standard  of  morality,  and  an  enlightened 
piety,  through  the  influence  of  the  graduates  of  these  in- 
stitutions, not  only  as  pastors  and  as  teachers,  but  in  all 
sorts  of  trades  and  professions  and  as  mothers  of  families. 

This  work  of  the  Congregationalists  is  entitled  to  men- 
tion, not  as  exceptional,  but  only  as  eminent  among  like 
enterprises,  in  which  few  of  the  leading  sects  have  failed 
to  be  represented.  Extravagant  expectations  were  at  first 
entertained  of  immediate  results  in  bringing  the  long- 
depressed  race  up  to  the  common  plane  of  civilization. 
But  it  cannot  be  said  that  reasonable  and  intelligent  ex- 
pectations have  been  disappointed.  Experience  has 
taught  much  as  to  the  best  conduct  of  such  missions. 
The  gift  of  a  fund  of  a  million  dollars  by  the  late  John  F. 
Slater,  of  Norwich,  has  through  wise  management  con- 
duced to  this  end.  It  has  encouraged  in  the  foremost 
institutions  the  combination  of  training  to  skilled  produc- 
tive labor  with  education  in  literature  and  science. 

The  inauguration  of  these  systems  of  religious  education 
at  the  South  was  the  most  conspicuously  important  of  the 
immediate  sequels  of  the  Civil  War.  But  this  time  was  a 
time  of  great  expansion  of  the  activities  of  the  church  in 
all  directions.  The  influx  of  immigration,  temporarily 
checked  by  the  hard  times  of  1857  and  by  the  five  years 
of  war,  came  in  again   in  such  floods  as  never  before.^ 

1  The  immigration  is  thus  given  by  decades,  with  an  illustrative  diagram, 
Ijy  Dr.  Dorchester,  "  Christianity  in  the  United  States,"  p.  759: 

1825-35 330,737 

1835-45 707,770 

'845-55 2,944,833 

1855-65 1,578,483 

1865-75 3,234,090 

1875-85 4,061,278 


35S  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xx. 

The  foreign  immigration  is  always  attended  by  a  westward 
movement  of  tlie  already  settled  population.  The  field  of 
home  missions  became  greater  and  more  exacting  than 
ever.  The  zeal  of  the  church,  educated  during  the  war  to 
higher  ideas  of  self-sacrifice,  rose  to  the  occasion.  The 
average  yearly  receipts  of  the  various  Protestant  home 
missionary  societies,  which  in  the  decade  1850-59  had 
been  $808,000,  rose  in  the  next  decade  to  more  than 
$2,000,000,  in  the  next  to  nearly  $3,000,000,  and  for  the 
seven  years  1881-87  to  $4,000,000.^ 

In  the  perils  of  abounding  wealth  by  which  the  church 
after  the  war  was  beset,  it  was  divine  fatherly  kindness 
that  opened  before  it  new  and  enlarged  facilities  of  service 
to  the  kingdom  of  heaven  among  foreign  nations.  From 
the  first  feeble  beginnings  of  foreign  missions  from  America 
in  India  and  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  they  had  been 
attended  by  the  manifest  favor  of  God,  When  the  con- 
vulsion of  the  Civil  War  came  on,  with  prostrations  of 
business  houses,  and  enormous  burdens  of  public  obliga- 
tion, and  private  beneficence  drawn  down,  as  it  seemed,  to 
its  "  bottom  dollar  "  for  new  calls  of  patriotism  and  charity, 
and  especially  when  the  dollar  in  a  man's  pocket  shrank 
to  a  half  or  a  third  of  its  value  in  the  world's  currency,  it 
seemed  as  if  the  work  of  foreign  missions  would  have  to 
be  turned  over  to  Christians  in  lands  less  burdened  with 
accumulated  disadvantages.  But  here  again  the  grandeur 
of  the  burden  gave  an  inspiration  of  strength  to  the  bur- 
den-bearer. From  1840  to  1849  the  average  yearly 
receipts  of  the  various  foreign  missionary  societies  of  the 

1  Ibid.,  p.  714.  We  have  quoted  in  round  numbers.  The  figures  do  not 
include  the  large  sums  expended  annually  in  the  colportage  work  of  Bible  and 
tract  societies,  in  .Sunday  school  missions,  and  in  the  building  of  churches  and 
parsonages.  In  the  accounts  of  the  last-named  most  effective  enterprise  the 
small  amounts  received  and  appropriated  to  aid  in  building  would  represent 
manifold  more  gathered  and  expended  by  the  pioneer  churches  on  the  ground. 


EXPAXSION  OF  BENEFICENCE.  359 

Protestant  churches  of  the  country  had  been  a  little  more 
than  a  half-million.  .  In  the  decade  1850-59  they  had 
risen  to  $850,000;  for  the  years  of  distress,  1860-69,  they 
exceeded  $1,300,000;  for  the  eleven  years  1870-80  the 
annual  receipts  in  this  behalf  were  $2,200,000;  and  in  the 
seven  years  1881-87  they  were  $3,000,000.^ 

We  have  seen  how,  only  forty  years  before  the  return 
of  peace,  in  the  days  of  a  humble  equality  in  moderate 
estates,  ardent  souls  exulted  together  in  the  inauguration 
of  the  era  of  democracy  in  beneficence,  when  every  hum- 
blest giver  might,  through  association  and  organization, 
have  part  in  magnificent  enterprises  of  Christian  charity 
such  as  had  theretofore  been  possible  "  only  to  princes  or 
to  men  of  princely  possessions.""^  But  with  the  return  of 
civil  peace  we  began  to  recognize  that  among  ourselves 
was  growing  up  a  class  of  "  men  of  princely  possessions  " 
— a  class  such  as  the  American  Republic  never  before  had 
known. -^  Among  those  whose  fortunes  were  reckoned  by 
many  millions  or  many  tens  of  millions  were  men  of  sor- 
did nature,  whose  wealth,  ignobly  won,  was  selfishly 
hoarded,  and  to  whose  names,  as  to  that  of  the  late  Jay 
Gould,  there  is  attached  in  the  mind  of  the  people  a  dis- 
tinct note  of  infamy.  But  this  was  not  in  general  the 
character  of  the  American  millionaire.  There  were  those 
of  nobler  strain  who  felt  a  responsibility  commensurate 
with  the  great  power  conferred  by  great  riches,  and  held 
their  wealth  as  in  trust  for  mankind.      Through  the  fidelity 

1  Dorchester,  op.  cit.,  p.  709.  2  Above,  pp.  259,  260. 

'  A  pamphlet  published  at  the  office  of  the  New  York  "  Sun,"  away  back 
in  tlie  early  thirties,  was  formerly  in  my  possession,  whicii  undertook  to  give, 
under  the  title  "  The  Rich  Men  of  New  York,"  the  name  of  every  person  in 
that  city  who  was  worth  more  than  one  hundred  thous.ind  dollars— and  it  was 
not  a  large  pamphlet,  either.  .\s  nearly  as  I  remember,  there  were  less  than 
a  half-dozen  names  credited  with  more  tlian  a  million,  and  one  solitary  name, 
that  of  John  Jacob  Astor,  was  reported  as  good  for  the  enormous  and  almost 
incredible  sum  of  ten  millions. 


36o  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xx. 

of  men  of  this  sort  it  has  come  to  pass  that  the  era  of  great 
fortunes  in  America  has  become  conspicuous  in  the  history 
of  the  w.hole  world  as  the  era  of  magnificent  donations  to 
benevolent  ends.  Within  a  few  months  of  each  other, 
from  the  little  State  of  Connecticut,  came  the  fund  of  a 
milHon  given  by  John  F.  Slater  in  his  lifetime  for  the 
benefit  of  the  freedmen,  the  gift  of  a  like  sum  for  the  like 
purpose  from  Daniel  Hand,  and  the  legacy  of  a  million 
and  a  half  for  foreign  missions  from  Deacon  Otis  of  New 
London.  Great  gifts  like  these  were  frequently  directed 
to  objects  which  could  not  easily  have  been  attained  by 
the  painful  process  of  accumulating  small  donations.  It 
was  a  period  not  only  of  splendid  gifts  to  existing  insti- 
tutions, but  of  foundations  for  new  universities,  libraries, 
hospitals,  and  other  institutions  of  the  highest  pubHc  ser- 
vice, foundations  without  parallel  in  human  history  for 
large  munificence.  To  this  period  belong  the  beginnings 
of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University  and  Hospital  at  Balti- 
more, the  University  of  Chicago,  the  Clarke  University  at 
Worcester,  the  Vanderbilt  University  at  Nashville,  the 
Leland  Stanford,  Jr.,  University  of  California,  the  Pea- 
body  and  Enoch  Pratt  Libraries  at  Baltimore,  the  Lenox 
Library  at  New  York,  the  great  endowed  libraries  of  Chi- 
cago, the  Drexel  Institute  at  Philadelphia,  and  the  Armour 
Institute  at  Chicago.  These  are  some  of  the  names  that 
most  readily  occur  of  foundations  due  mainly  to  individual 
liberality,  set  down  at  the  risk  of  omitting  others  with 
equal  claim  for  mention.  Not  all  of  these  are  to  be  re- 
ferred to  a  rehgious  spirit  in  the  founders,  but  none  of 
them  can  fail  of  a  Christian  influence  and  result.  They 
prepare  a  foothold  for  such  a  forward  stride  of  Christian 
civilization  as  our  continent  has  never  before  known. 

The  sum  of  these  gifts  of  millions,  added  to  the  great 
aggregates    of    contribution    to    the    national   missionary 


AN  ERA    OF  LARUE    GIFTS.  36 1 

boards  and  societies,  falls  far  short  of  ihe  total  contribu- 
tions expended  in  cities,  towns,  and  villages  for  the  build- 
ing of  churches  and  the  maintenance  of  the  countless 
charities  that  cluster  around  them.  The  era  following  the 
war  was  preeminently  a  "  building  era."  Every  one 
knows  that  religious  devotion  is  only  one  of  the  mingled 
motives  that  work  together  in  such  an  enterprise  as  the 
building  of  a  church;  but,  after  all  deductions,  the  volun- 
tary gifts  of  Christian  people  for  Christ's  sake  in  the  pro- 
motion of  such  works,  when  added  to  the  grand  totals 
already  referred  to,  would  make  an  amount  that  would 
overtax  the  ordinary  imagination  to  conceive. 

And  yet  it  is  not  certain  that  this  period  of  immense 
gifts  of  money  is  really  a  period  of  increased  liberality  in 
the  church  from  the  time,  thirty  or  forty  years  before, 
when  a  millionaire  was  a  rarity  to  be  pointed  out  on  the 
streets,  and  the  possession  of  a  hundred  thousand  dollars 
gave  one  a  place  among  "The  Rich  Men  of  New  York." 
In  1850  the  total  wealth  of  the  United  States  was  reported 
in  the  census  as  seven  billions  of  dollars.  In  1870,  after 
twenty  years,  it  had  more  than  fourfolded,  rising  to  thirty 
billions.  Ten  years  later,  according  to  the  census,  it  had 
sixfolded,  rising  to  forty-three  billions.^  From  the  point 
of  view  of  One  "  sitting  over  against  the  treasury  "  it  is  not 
likely  that  any  subsequent  period  has  equaled  in  its  gifts 
that  early  day  when  in  New  England  the  people  "  were 
wont  to  build  a  fine  church  as  soon  as  they  had  houses 
for  themselves,"  -  and  when  the  messengers  went  from 
cabin  to  cabin  to  gather  the  gifts  of  "  the  college  corn." 

The  greatest  addition  to  the  forces  of  the  church  in  the 
period  since  the  war  has  come  from  deploying  into  the 

1  Dorchester,  "  Christianity  in  the  United  States,"  p.  715. 

2  See  above,  p.  70. 


362  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xx. 

field  hitherto  unused  resources  of  personal  service.  The 
methods  under  which  the  personal  activity  of  private 
Christians  has  formerly  been  organized  for  service  have 
increased  and  multiplied,  and  old  agencies  have  taken  on 
new  forms. 

The  earliest  and  to  this  day  the  most  extensive  of  the 
organizations  for  utilizing  the  non-professional  ministry  in 
systematic  religious  labors  is  the  Sunday-school.  The 
considerable  development  of  this  instrumentality  begins  to 
be  recognized  after  the  Second  Awakening  in  the  early 
years  of  the  present  century.  The  prevailing  character- 
istic of  the  American  Sunday-school  as  distinguished  from 
its  British  congener  is  that  it  is  commonly  a  part  of  the 
equipment  of  the  local  church  for  the  instruction  of  its 
own  children,  and  incidentally  one  of  the  most  important 
resources  for  its  attractive  work  toward  those  that  are 
without.  But  it  is  also  recognized  as  one  of  the  most 
flexible  and  adaptable  "  arms  of  the  service  "  for  aggres- 
sive work,  whether  in  great  cities  or  on  the  frontier.  It 
was  about  the  3- ear  1825  that  this  work  began  to  be 
organized  on  a  rational  scale.  But  it  is  since  the  war 
that  it  has  sprung  into  vastly  greater  efficiency.  The 
agreement  upon  uniform  courses  of  biblical  study,  to  be 
followed  simultaneously  by  many  millions  of  pupils  over 
the  entire  continent,  has  given  a  unity  and  coherence 
before  unknown  to  the  Sunday-school  system ;  and  it  has 
resulted  in  extraordinary  enterprise  and  activity  on  the 
part  of  competent  editors  and  publishers  to  provide  ap- 
paratus for  the  thorough  study  of  the  text,  which  bids  fair 
in  time  to  take  away  the  reproach  of  the  term  "  Sunday- 
schoolish  "  as  applied  to  superficial,  ignorant,  or  merely 
sentimental  expositions  of  the  Scriptures.  The  work  of 
the  "  Sunday-school  Times,"  in  bringing  within  the  reach 
of  teachers  all  over  the  land  the  fruits  of  the  world's  best 


I 


THE   SUXD AY-SCHOOL   SYSTEM.  363 

scholarship,  is  a  signal  fact  in  history — the  most  conspicu- 
ous of  a  series  of  like  facts.  The  tendency,  slow,  of 
course,  and  partial,  but  powerful,  is  toward  serious,  faith- 
ful study  and  teaching,  in  which  "  the  mind  of  the  Spirit  " 
is  sought  in  the  sacred  text,  with  strenuous  efforts  of  the 
teachable  mind,  with  all  the  aids  that  can  be  brought  from 
whatever  quarter.  The  Sunday-school  system,  coexten- 
sive with  Protestant  Christianity  in  America,  and  often 
the  forerunner  of  church  and  ministry,  and,  to  a  less  ex- 
tent and  under  more  scrupulous  control  of  clergy,  adopted 
into  the  Catholic  Church,  has  become  one  of  the  distinc- 
tive features  of  American  Christianity. 

An  outgrowth  of  the  Sunday-school  system,  which, 
under  the  conduct  of  a  man  of  genius  for  organization, 
Dr.  John  H.  Vincent,  now  a  bishop  of  the  Methodist 
Church,  has  expanded  to  magnificent  dimensions,  is  that 
which  is  suggested  by  the  name  "Chautauqua."  Beginning 
in  the  summer  of  1874  with  a  fortnight's  meeting  in  a 
grove  beside  Chautauqua  Lake  for  the  study  of  the 
methods  of  Sunday-school  teaching,  it  led  to  the  questions, 
how  to  connect  the  Sunday-school  more  intimately  with 
other  departments  of  the  church  and  with  other  agencies 
in  society ;  how  to  control  in  the  interest  of  religious  cul- 
ture the  forces,  social,  commercial,  industrial,  and  educa- 
tional, which,  for  good  or  evil,  are  affecting  the  Sunday- 
school  pupils  every  day  of  the  week.  Striking  root  at 
other  centers  of  assembly,  east,  west,  and  south,  and 
combining  its  summer  lectures  with  an  organized  system  of 
home  studies  extending  through  the  year,  subject  to  written 
examinations,  "  Chautauqua,"  by  the  comprehensive  scope 
of  its  studies  and  by  the  great  multitude  of  its  students,  is 
entitled  to  be  called,  in  no  ignoble  sense  of  the  word,  a 
university.^     A  weighty  and  unimpeachable  testimony  to 

1  Bishop  Vincent,  in  "  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopedia,"  p.  441.     The  number 


364  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xx. 

the  power  and  influence  of  the  institution  has  been  the 
recent  organization  of  a  Catholic  Chautauqua,  under  the 
conduct  of  leading  scholars  and  ecclesiastics  of  the  Roman 
Church. 

Another  organization  of  the  unpaid  service  of  private 
Christians  is  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association. 
Beginning  in  London  in  1844,  it  had  so  far  demonstrated 
its  usefulness  in  1851  as  to  attract  favorable  attention 
from  visitors  to  the  first  of  the  World's  Fairs.  In  the  end 
of  that  year  the  Association  in  Boston  was  formed,  and 
this  was  rapidly  followed  by  others  in  the  principal  cities. 
It  met  a  growing  exigency  in  American  society.  In  the 
organization  of  commerce  and  manufacture  in  larger  es- 
tablishments than  formerly,  the  apprenticeship  system  had 
necessarily  lapsed,  and  nothing  had  taken  its  place.  Of 
old,  young  men  put  to  the  learning  of  any  business  were 
"  articled  "  or  "  indentured  "  as  apprentices  to  the  head  of 
the  concern,  who  was  placed  in  loco  parentis,  being  in- 
vested both  with  the  authority  and  with  the  responsibility 
of  a  father.  Often  the  apprentices  were  received  into  the 
house  of  the  master  as  their  home,  and  according  to 
legend  and  romance  it  was  in  order  for  the  industrious  and 
virtuous  apprentice  to  marry  the  old  man's  daughter  and 
succeed  to  the  business.  After  the  employees  of  a  store 
came  to  be  numbered  by  scores  and  the  employees  of  a 
factory  by  hundreds,  the  word  "  apprentice "  became 
obsolete  in  the  American  language.  The  employee  was 
only  a  "  hand,"  and  there  was  danger  that  employers 
would  forget  that  he  was  also  a  heart  and  a  soul.  This 
was  the  exigency  that  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation came  to  supply.      Men  of  conscience  among  em- 

of  students  in  the  "Chautauqua  Literary  and  Scientific  Circle"  already  in 
1891  exceeded  twenty-five  thousand. 


THE    CHRISTIAN  ASSOCIATION.  365 

ployers  and  corporations  recognized  their  opportunity  and 
their  duty.  The  new  societies  did  not  lack  encouragement 
and  financial  aid  from  those  to  whom  the  character  of  the 
young  men  was  not  only  a  matter  of  Christian  concern, 
but  also  a  matter  of  business  interest.  In  every  consider- 
able town  the  Association  organized  itself,  and  the  work 
of  equipment,  and  soon  of  building,  went  on  apace.  In 
1887  the  Association  buildings  in  the  United  States  and 
Canada  were  valued  at  three  and  a  half  millions.  In 
1896  there  were  in  North  America  1429  Associations, 
with  about  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  members,  employing 
1 25 1  paid  officers,  and  holding  buildings  and  other  real 
estate  to  the  amount  of  nearly  $20,000,000. 

The  work  has  not  been-  without  its  vicissitudes.  The 
wonderful  revival  of  1857,  preeminently  a  laymen's  move- 
ment, in  many  instances  found  its  nidus  in  the  rooms  of 
the  Associations;  and  their  work  was  expanded  and  in- 
vigorated as  a  result  of  the  revival.  In  1861  came  on  the 
war.  It  broke  up  for  the  time  the  continental  confederacy 
of  Associations.  Many  of  the  local  Associations  were  dis- 
solved by  the  enlistment  of  their  members.  But  out  of 
the  inspiring  exigencies  of  the  time  grew  up  in  the  heart 
of  the  Associations  the  organization  and  work  of  the  Chris- 
tian Commission,  cooperating  with  the  Sanitary  Commis- 
sion for  the  bodily  and  spiritual  comfort  of  the  armies  in 
the  field.  The  two  organizations  expended  upward  of 
eleven  millions  of  dollars,  the  free  gift  of  the  people  at 
home.  After  the  war  the  survivors  of  those  who  had 
enlisted  from  the  Associations  came  back  to  their  home 
duties,  in  most  cases,  better  men  for  all  good  service  in 
consequence  of  their  experience  of  military  discipline. 

A  natural  sequel  to  the  organization  and  success  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  is  the  institution  of 


366  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xx. 

the  Young  Women's  Christian  Association,  having  like 
objects  and  methods  in  its  proper  sphere.  This  institu- 
tion, too,  owes  the  reason  of  its  existence  to  changed 
social  conditions.  The  plausible  arguments  of  some  ear- 
nest reformers  in  favor  of  opening  careers  of  independent 
self-support  to  women,  and  the  unquestionable  and  pathetic 
instances  by  which  these  arguments  are  enforced,  are 
liable  to  some  most  serious  and  weighty  offsets.  Doubt- 
less many  and  many  a  case  of  hardship  has  been  relieved 
by  the  general  introduction  of  this  reform.  But  the  re- 
sult has  been  the  gathering  in  large  towns  of  populations 
of  unmarried,  self-supporting  young  women,  severed  from 
home  duties  and  influences,  and,  out  of  business  hours, 
under  no  effective  restraints  of  rule.  There  is  a  rush 
from  the  country  into  the  city  of  applicants  for  employ- 
ment, and  wages  sink  to  less  than  a  living  rate.  We  are 
confronted  with  an  artificial  and  perilous  condition  for 
the  church  to  deal  with,  especially  in  the  largest  cities. 
And  of  the  various  instrumentalities  to  this  end,  the 
Young  Women's  Christian  Association  is  one  of  the  most 
effective. 

The  development  of  organized  activity  among  women 
has  been  a  conspicuous  characteristic  of  this  period.  From 
the  beginning  of  our  churches  the  charitable  sewing-circle 
or  "  Dorcas  Society  "  has  been  known  as  a  center  both  of 
prayer  and  of  labor.  But  in  this  period  the  organization 
of  women  for  charitable  service  has  been  on  a  continental 
sca'e. 

In  1874,  in  an  outburst  of  zeal,  "women's  crusades" 
were  undertaken,  especially  in  some  western  towns,  in 
which  bands  of  singing  and  praying  women  went  in  per- 
son to  tippling-houses  and  even  worse  resorts,  to  assail 
them,  visibly  and  audibly,  with  these  spiritual  weapons. 


WOMEN'S  SOCIETIES.  367 

The  crusades,  so  long  as  they  were  a  novelty,  were  not 
without  result.  Spectacular  prayers,  offered  with  one  eye 
on  the  heavens  and  the  other  eye  watching  the  impressions 
made  on  the  human  auditor,  are  not  in  vain ;  they  have 
their  reward.  But  the  really  important  result  of  the 
"  crusades  "  was  the  organization  of  the  "  Women's  Chris- 
tian Temperance  Union,"  which  has  extended  in  all  direc- 
tions to  the  utmost  bounds  of  the  country,  and  has 
accomplished  work  of  undoubted  value,  while  attempting 
other  work  the  value  of  which  is  open  to  debate. 

The  separate  organization  of  women  for  the  support  and 
management  of  missions  began  on  an  extensive  scale,  in 
1868,  with  the  Women's  Board  of  Missions,  instituted  in 
alliance  with  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign  Missions  of  the  Congregationalist  churches.  The 
example  at  once  commended  itself  to  the  imitation  of  all, 
so  that  all  the  principal  mission  boards  of  the  Protestant 
churches  are  in  alliance  with  actively  working  women's 
boards. 

The  training  acquired  in  these  and  other  organizations 
by  many  women  of  exceptional  taste  and  talent  for  the 
conduct  of  large  affairs  has  tended  still  further  to  widen 
the  field  of  their  activity.  The  ends  of  the  earth,  as  well 
as  the  dark  places  nearer  home,  have  felt  the  salutary 
results  of  it.^ 

In  this  brief  and  most  incomplete  sketch  of  the  origin 
of  one  of  the  distinguishing  features  of  contemporary 
Christianity — the  application  of  the  systematized  activity 
of  private  Christians — no  mention  has  been  made  of  the 
corps  of  "  colporteurs,"   or  book-peddlers,  employed  by 

^  Among  the  titles  omitted  from  this  list  are  the  various  "  Lend-a-Hand 
Clubs,"  and  "  10  x  i  =  10  Clubs,"  and  circles  of  "King's  Daughters,"  and 
like  coteries,  that  have  been  inspired  by  the  tales  and  the  "four  mottoes" 
of  Edward  Everett  Hale. 


368  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xX. 

religious  publication  societies,  nor  of  the  vastly  useful 
work  of  laymen  employed  as  city  missionaries,  nor  of  the 
houses  and  orders  of  sisters  wholly  devoted  to  pious  and 
charitable  work.  Such  work,  though  the  ceremony  of 
ordination  may  have  been  omitted,  is  rather  clerical  or  pro- 
fessional than  laical.  It  is  on  this  account  the  better 
suited  to  the  genius  of  the  Catholic  Church,  whose  ages  of 
experience  in  the  conduct  of  such  organizations,  and 
whose  fine  examples  of  economy  and  efficiency  in  the  use 
of  them,  have  put  all  American  Christendom  under  obU- 
gation.  Among  Protestant  sects  the  Lutherans,  the 
Episcopalians,  and  the  Methodists  have  (after  the  Moravi- 
ans) shown  themselves  readiest  to  profit  by  the  example. 
But  a  far  more  widely  beneficent  service  than  that  of  all 
the  nursing  "  orders  "  together,  both  Catholic  and  Protes- 
tant, and  one  not  less  Christian,  while  it  is  characteristi- 
cally American  in  its  method,  is  that  of  the  annually 
increasing  army  of  faithful  women  professionally  educated 
to  the  work  of  nursing,  at  a  hundred  hospitals,  and  fulfill- 
ing their  vocation  individually  and  on  business  principles. 
The  education  of  nurses  is  a  sequel  of  the  war  and  one 
of  the  beneficent  fruits  of  it. 

Not  the  least  important  item  in  the  organization  of  lay 
activity  is  the  marvelously  rapid  growth  of  the  "  Young 
People's  Society  of  Christian  Endeavor."  In  February, 
1 88 1,  a  pastor  in  Portland,  Me.,  the  Rev.  Francis  E.  Clark, 
organized  into  an  association  within  his  church  a  number 
of  young  people  pledged  to  certain  rules  of  regular  at- 
tendance and  participation  in  the  association  meetings  and 
of  cooperation  in  useful  service.  There  seems  to  have 
been  no  particular  originality  in  the  plan,  but  through 
some  felicity  in  arrangement  and  opportuneness  in  the 
time  it  caught  like  a  forest  fire,  and  in  an  amazingly  short 


CHRISTIAX  ENDEAVOR   SOCIETIES.  369 

time  ran  through  the  country  and  around  the  world.  One 
wise  precaution  was  taken  in  the  basis  of  the  organization  : 
it  was  provided  that  it  should  not  interfere  with  any 
member's  fidelity  to  his  church  or  his  sect,  but  rather  pro- 
mote it.  Doubtless  jealousy  of  its  influence  was  thus  in 
some  measure  forestalled  and  averted.  But  in  the  rapid 
spread  of  the  Society  those  who  were  on  guard  for  the 
interests  of  the  several  sects  recognized  a  danger  in  too 
free  affiliations  outside  of  sectarian  lines,  and  soon  there 
were  instituted,  in  like  forms  of  rule,  "  Epworth  Leagues  " 
for  Methodists,"  Westminster  Leagues  "  for  Presbyterians, 
"  Luther  Leagues  "  for  Lutherans,  "  St.  Andrew's  Broth- 
erhoods "  for  Episcopalians,  "  The  Baptist  Young  People's 
Union,"  and  yet  others  for  yet  other  sects.  According  to 
the  latest  reports,  the  total  pledged  membership  of  this 
order  of  associated  young  disciples,  in  these  various  rami- 
fications, is  about  4,500,000^ — this  in  the  United  States 
alone.  Of  the  Christian  Endeavor  Societies  still  adhering 
to  the  old  name  and  constitution,  there  are  in  all  the  world 
47,009,  of  which  1 1,1 19  are  "Junior  Endeavor  Societies." 
The  total  membership  is  2,820,540.2 

Contemporary  currents  of  theological  thought,  setting 
away  from  the  excessive  individualism  which  has  charac- 
terized the  churches  of  the  Great  Awakening,  confirm  the 
tendency  of  the  Christian  life  toward  a  vigorous  and  even 
absorbing  external  activity.  The  duty  of  the  church  to 
human  society  is  made  a  part  of  the  required  curriculum 
of  study  in  preparation  for  the  ministry,  in  fully  equipped 
theological  seminaries.  If  ever  it  has  been  a  just  reproach 
of  the  church  that  its  frequenters  were  so  absorbed^  in  the 
saving  of  their  own  souls  that  they  forgot  the  multitude 
about  them,  that  reproach  is  fast  passing  away.    "  The  In- 

1  Dr.  H.  K.  Carroll,  in  "  The  Independent,"  April  i,  1897. 

2  "  Congregationalist  Handbook  for  1897,"  p.  35. 


370  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.^  [Chap.  xx. 

stitutional  Church,"  as  the  clumsy  phrase  goes,  cares  for 
soul  and  body,  for  family  and  municipal  and  national  life. 
Its  saving  sacraments  are  neither  two  nor  seven,  but  sev- 
enty times  seven.  They  include  the  bath-tub  as  well  as 
the  font ;  the  coffee-house  and  cook-shop  as  well  as  the 
Holy  Supper;  the  gymnasium  as  well  as  the  prayer-meet- 
ing. The  "  college  settlement  "  plants  colonies  of  the  best 
life  of  the  church  in  regions  which  men  of  little  faith  are 
tempted  to  speak  of  as  "  God-forsaken."  The  Salvation 
Army,  with  its  noisy  and  eccentric  ways,  and  its  effective 
discipline,  and  its  most  Christian  principle  of  setting  every 
rescued  man  at  work  to  aid  in  the  rescue  of  others,  is  wel- 
comed by  all  orders  of  the  church,  and  honored  according 
to  the  measure  of  its  usefulness,  and  even  of  its  faithful 
effort  to  be  useful. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  this  immense,  unprecedented 
growth  of  outward  activity  can  have  been  gained  without 
some  corresponding  loss.  The  time  is  not  long  gone  by, 
when  the  sustained  contemplation  of  the  deep  things  of 
the  cross,  and  the  lofty  things  in  the  divine  nature,  and 
the  subtile  and  elusive  facts  concerning  the  human  consti- 
tution and  character  and  the  working  of  the  human  will, 
were  eminently  characteristic  of  the  religious  life  of  the 
American  church.  In  the  times  when  that  life  was  stirred 
to  its  most  strenuous  activity,  it  was  marked  by  the  vicis- 
situde of  prolonged  passions  of  painful  sensibility  at  the 
consciousness  of  sin,  and  ecstasies  of  delight  in  the  con- 
templation of  the  infinity  of  God  and  the  glory  of  the 
Saviour  and  his  salvation.  Every  one  who  is  conversant 
with  the  religious  biography  of  the  generations  before  our 
own,  knows  of  the  still  hours  and  days  set  apart  for  the 
severe  inward  scrutiny  of  motives  and  "  frames  "  and  the 
grounds  of  one's  hope.      liauLei^fit-truly  the  church  of  to- 


LOSS   OF   THE    PURITAN  SABBATH.  37 1 

day  may  judge  that  the  piety  of  their  fathers  was  dispro- 
portionedand  morbidly  introspective  and  unduly  concerned 
about  one's  own  salvation,  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  the 
reaction  from  its  excesses  is  violent,  and  is  providing 
for  itself  a  new  reaction.  "The  contemplative  orders," 
whether  among  Catholics  or  Protestants,  do  not  find  the 
soil  and  climate  of  America  congenial.  And  yet  there  is 
a  mission-field  here  for  the  mystic  and  the  quietist;  and 
when  the  stir-about  activity  of  our  generation  suffers  their 
calm  voices  to  be  heard,  there  are  not  a  few  to  give  ear. 

An  event  of  great  historical  importance,  which  cannot 
be  determined  to  a  precise  date,  but  which  belongs  more 
to  this  period  than  to  any  other,  is  the  joss  of  the  Scotch 
and  Puritan  Sabbath,  or,  as  many  like  to  call  it,  the  Amer- 
ican Sabbath.  The  law  of  the  Westminster  divines  on 
this  subject,  it  may  be  affirmed  without  fear  of  contradic- 
tion from  any  quarter,  does  not  coincide  in  its  language 
with  the  law  of  God  as  expressed  either  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment or  in  the  New.  The  Westminster  rule  requires,  as 
if  with  a  "Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  that  on  the  first  day  of 
the  week,  instead  of  the  seventh,  men  shall  desist  not  only 
from  labor  but  from  recreation,  and  "  spend  the  whole  time 
in  the  public  and  private  exercises  of  God's  worship,  ex- 
cept so  much  as  is  to  be  taken  up  in  the  works  of  necessity 
and  mercy."  ^  This  interpretation  and  expansion  of  the 
Fourth  Commandment  has  never  attained  to  more  than  a 
sectarian  and  provincial  authority ;  but  the  overmastering 
Puritan  influence,  both  of  Virginia  and  of  New  England, 
combined  with  the  Scotch-Irish  influence,  made  it  for  a 
long  time  dominant  in  America.     Even  those  who  quite 

1  Westminster  Shorter  Catechism,  Ans.  60.  The  commentaries  on  the 
Catechism,  which  are  many,  like  Gemara  upon  Mishna,  build  wider  and 
higher  the  "  fence  around  the  law,"  in  a  fashion  truly  rabbinic. 


372  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY,  [Chap.  xx. 

declined  to  admit  the  divine  authority  of  the  glosses  upon 
the  commandment  felt  constrained  to  "  submit  to  the  or- 
dinances of  man  for  the  Lord's  sake."  But  it  was  inevi- 
table that  with  the  vast  increase  of  the  travel  and  sojourn 
of  American  Christians  in  other  lands  of  Christendom,  and 
the  multitudinous  immigration  into  America  from  other 
lands  than  Great  Britain,  the  tradition  from  the  Westmin- 
ster elders  should  come  to  be  openly  disputed  within  the 
church,  and  should  be  disregarded  even  when  not  denied. 
It  was  not  only  inevitable ;  it  was  a  Christian  duty  dis- 
tinctly enjoined  by  apostolic  authority.^  The  five  years 
of  war,  during  which  Christians  of  various  lands  and  creeds 
intermingled  as  never  before,  and  the  Sunday  laws  were 
dumb  "  intej'  anna''  not  only  in  the  field  but  among  the 
home  churches,  did  perhaps  even  more  to  break  the  force 
of  the  tradition,  and  to  lead  in  a  perilous  and  demoralizing 
reaction.  Some  reaction  was  inevitable.  The  church 
must  needs  suffer  the  evil  consequence  of  overstraining 
the  law  of  God.  From  the  Sunday  of  ascetic  self-denial 
— "  a  day  for  a  man  to  afflict  his  soul  " — there  was  a  ready 
rush  into  utter  recklessness  of  the  law  and  privilege  of  rest. 
In  the  church  there  was  wrought  sore  damage  to  weak 
consciences ;  men  acted,  not  from  intelligent  conviction, 
but  from  lack  of  conviction,  and  allowing  themselves  in 
self-indulgences  of  the  rightfulness  of  which  they  were 
dubious,  they  "  condemned  themselves  in  that  which  they 
allowed."  The  consequence  in  civil  society  was  alike  dis- 
astrous. Early  legislation  had  not  steered  clear  of  the  error 
of  attempting  to  enforce  Sabbath-keeping  as  a  religious 
duty  by  civil  penalties ;  and  some  relics  of  that  mistake 
remained,  and  still  remain,  on  some  of  the  statute-books. 
The  just  protest  against  this  wrong  was,  of  course,  undis- 
criminating,  tending  to  defeat  the  righteous  and  most  sal- 

1  Colossians,  ii.  i6. 


HEAcriox  rRo.-\r  puritax  excess.  ^-ii 

utary  laws  that  aimed  simply  to  secure  for  the  citizen  the 
privilege  of  a  weekly  day  of  rest  and  to  secure  the  holiday 
thus  ordained  by  law  from  being  perverted  into  a  nuisance. 
The  social  change  which  is  still  in  progress  along  these 
lines  no  wise  Christian  patriot  can  contemplate  with  com- 
placency. It  threatens,  when  complete,  to  deprive  us  of 
that  universal  quiet  Sabbath  rest  which  has  been  one  of  the 
glories  of  American  social  life,  an.d  an  important  element 
in  its  economic  prosperity,  and  to  give  in  place  of  it,  to 
some,  no  assurance  of  a  Sabbath  rest  at  all,  to  others,  a 
Sabbath  of  revelry  and  debauch. 


CHAPTER   XXI. 

THE    CHURCH    IN    THEOLOGY    AND    LITERATURE. 

The  rapid  review  of  three  crowded  centuries,  which  is 
all  that  the  narrowly  prescribed  limits  of  this  volume  have 
permitted,  has  necessarily  been  mainly  restricted  to  ex- 
ternal facts.  But  looking  back  over  the  course  of  visible 
events,  it  is  not  impossible  for  acute  minds  devoted  to  such 
study  to  trace  the  stream  of  thought  and  sentiment  that 
is  sometimes  hidden  from  direct  view  by  the  overgrowth 
which  itself  has  nourished. 

We  have  seen  a  profound  spiritual  change,  renewing  the 
face  of  the  land  and  leaving  its  indelible  impress  on  suc- 
cessive generations,  springing  from  the  profoundest  con- 
templations of  God  and  his  work  of  salvation  through 
Jesus  Christ,  and  then  bringing  back  into  thoughtful  and 
teachable  minds  new  questions  to  be  solved  and  new  dis- 
coveries of  truth  to  be  pondered.  The  one  school  of 
theological  opinion  and  inquiry  that  can  be  described  as 
characteristically  American  is  the  theology  of  the  Great 
Awakening.  The  disciples  of  this  school,  in  all  its  diver- 
gent branches,  agree  in  looking  back  to  the  first  Jonathan 
Edwards  as  the  founder  of  it.  Through  its  generations  it 
has  shown  a  striking  sequence  and  continuity  of  intellec- 
tual and  spiritual  life,  each  generation  answering  questions 
put  to  it  by  its  predecessor,  while  propounding  new  ques- 
374 


THE  EDWARDEAN  DYNASTY.  375 

tions  to  the  generation  following.  After  the  classical 
writings  of  its  first  founders,  the  most  widely  influential 
production  of  this  school  is  the  "  Theology  Explained  and 
Defended  in  a  Series  of  Sermons  "  of  President  Dwight. 
This  had  the  advantage  over  some  other  systems  of  haviiig 
been  preached,  and  thus  proved  to  be  preachable.  The 
"series  of  sermons"  was  that  delivered  to  successive 
generations  of  college  students  at  Yale  at  a  time  of  pre- 
vailing skepticism,  when  every  statement  of  the  college 
pulpit  was  liable  to  sharp  and  not  too  friendly  scrutiny ; 
and  it  was  preached  with  the  fixed  purpose  of  convincing 
and  converting  the  young  men  who  heard  it.  The  audi- 
ence, the  occasion,  and  the  man — a  fervid  Christian,  and 
a  born  poet  and  orator — combined  to  produce  a  work  of 
wide  and  enduring  influence.  The  dynasty  of  the  Ed- 
wardeans  is  continued  down  to  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  later,  through  different  lines,  ending 
in  Emmons  of  Franklin,  Taylor  of  New  Haven,  and  Fin- 
ney of  Oberlin,  and  is  represented  among  the  Hving  by 
the  venerable  Edwards  A.  Park,  of  Andover,  who  adds  to 
that  power  of  sustained  speculative  thinking  in  a  straight 
line  which  is  characteristic  of  the  whole  school,  a  wide 
learning  in  the  whole  field  of  theological  literature,  which 
had  not  been  usual  among  his  predecessors.  It  is  a  pre- 
vailing trait  of  this  theology,  born  of  the  great  revival,  that 
it  has  constantly  held  before  itself  not  only  the  question, 
What  is  truth?  but  also  the  question.  How  shall  it 
be  preached?  It  has  never  ceased  to  be  a  revival  the- 
ology. 

A  bold  and  open  breach  of  traditionary  assumptions 
and  habits  of  reasoning  was  made  by  Horace  Bushnell. 
This  was  a  theologian  of  a  diff"erent  type  from  his  New 
England  predecessors.  He  was  of  a  temper  little  disposed 
to  accept  either  methods  or  results  as  a  local  tradition,  and 


376  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxi. 

inclined  rather  to  prefer  that  which  had  been  "  hammered 
out  on  his  own  anvil."  And  yet,  while  very  free  in  mani- 
festing his  small  respect  for  the  "  logicking  "  by  syllogistic 
processes  which  had  been  the  pride  of  the  theological 
chair  and  even  the  pulpit  in  America,  and  while  declining 
the  use  of  current  phraseologies  even  for  the  expression 
of  current  ideas,  he  held  himself  loyally  subject  to  the 
canon  of  the  Scriptures  as  his  rule  of  faith,  and  deferential 
to  the  voice  of  the  church  catholic  as  uttered  in  the  con- 
cord of  testimony  of  holy  men  in  all  ages.  Endowed  with 
a  poet's  power  of  intuition,  uplifted  by  a  fervid  piety, 
uttering  himself  in  a  literary  style  singularly  rich  and 
melodious,  it  is  not  strange  that  such  a  man  should  have 
made  large  contributions  to  the  theological  thought  of 
his  own  and  later  times.  In  natural  theology,  his  dis- 
courses on  "The  Moral  Uses  of  Dark  Things"  (1869), 
and  his  longest  continuous  work,  on  "  Nature  and  the 
Supernatural  "  (1858),  even  though  read  rather  as  prose- 
poems  than  as  arguments,  sound  distinctly  new  notes  in 
the  treatment  of  their  theme.  In  "  God  in  Christ  "  ( 1 849), 
"Christ  in  Theology"  (185  i),  "The  Vicarious  Sacrifice" 
(1866),  and  "Forgiveness  and  Law"  (1874),  and  in  a 
notable  article  in  the  "New  Englander  "  for  November, 
1854,  entitled  "The  Christian  Trinity  a  Practical  Truth," 
the  great  topics  of  the  Christian  system  were  dealt  with 
all  the  more  effectively,  in  the  minds  of  thoughtful  readers 
in  this  and  other  lands,  for  cries  of  alarm  and  newspaper 
and  pulpit  impeachments  of  heresy  that  were  sent  forth. 
But  that  work  of  his  which  most  nearly  made  as  well  as 
marked  an  epoch  in  American  church  history  was  the 
treatise  of  "Christian  Nurture"  (1847).  This,  with  the 
protracted  controversy  that  followed  upon  the  publication 
of  it,  was  a  powerful  influence  in  lifting  the  American 
church  out  of  the  rut  of  mere  individualism  that  had  been 


B  USHNEL  L  -  NE  VI N.  377 

wearing  deeper  and  deeper  from  the  days  of  the  Great 
Awakening. 

Another  wholesome  and  edifying  debate  was  occasioned 
by  the  publications  that  went  forth  from  the  college  and 
theological  seminary  of  the  German  Reformed  Church, 
situated  at  Mercersburg  in  Pennsylvania.  At  this  institu- 
tion was  efTected  a  fruitful  union  of  American  and  German 
theology ;  the  result  was  to  commend  to  the  general  at- 
tention aspects  of  truth,  philosophical,  theological,  and 
historical,  not  previously  current  among  American  Protes- 
tants. The  book  of  Dr.  John  Williamson  Nevin,  entitled 
"  The  Mystical  Presence :  A  Vindication  of  the  Reformed 
or  Calvinistic  Doctrine  of  the  Holy  Eucharist,"  revealed 
to  the  vast  multitude  of  churches  and  ministers  that  gloried 
in  the  name  of  Calvinist  the  fact  that  on  the  most  distinc- 
tive article  of  Calvinism  they  were  not  Calvinists  at  all, 
but  Zwinglians.  The  enunciation  of  the  standard  doctrine 
of  the  various  Presbyterian  churches  excited  among 
themselves  a  clamor  of  "Heresy!  "  and  the  doctrine  of 
Calvin  was  put  upon  trial  before  the  Calvinists.  The 
outcome  of  a  discussion  that  extended  itself  far  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  the  comparatively  small  and  uninfluential 
German  Reformed  Church  was  to  elevate  the  point  of  view 
and  broaden  the  horizon  of  American  students  of  the 
constitution  and  history  of  the  church.  Later  generations 
of  such  students  owe  no  light  obligation  to  the  fidelity 
and  courage  of  Dr.  Nevin,  as  well  as  to  the  erudition  and 
immense  productive  diligence  of  his  associate,  Dr.  Philip 
Schaff.i 

It  is  incidental  to  the  prevailing  method  of  instruction 
in  theology  by  a  course  of  prelections  in  which  the  teacher 

1  For  fuller  accounts  of  "  the  Mercersburg  theology,"  with  references  to 
the  literature  of  the  subject,  see  Dubbs,  "  The  Reformed  Church,  German  " 
(American  Church  History  Series,"  vol.  viii.),  pp.  219,  220,  389-378;  also, 
Professor  E.  V.  Gerhart  in  "  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopedia,"  pp.  1473-1475. 


378  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxi. 

reads  to  his  class  in  detail  his  own  original  sununa  theo- 
logice,  that  the  American  press  has  been  prolific  of  pon- 
derous volumes  of  systematic  divinity.  Among  the  more 
notable  of  these  systems  are  those  of  Leonard  Woods  (in 
five  volumes)  and  of  Enoch  Pond  ;  of  the  two  Drs.  Hodge, 
father  and  son ;  of  Robert  J.  Breckinridge  and  James  H. 
Thornwell  and  Robert  L.  Dabney ;  and  the  "  Systematic 
Theology  "  of  a  much  younger  man,  Dr.  Augustus  H. 
Strong,  of  Rochester  Seminary,  which  has  won  for  itself 
very  unusual  and  wide  respect.  Exceptional  for  ability, 
as  well  as  for  its  originality  of  conception,  is  "  The  Re- 
public of  God  :  An  Institute  of  Theology,"  by  Elisha  Mul- 
ford,  a  disciple  of  Maurice  and  of  the  realist  philosophy, 
the  thought  of  whose  whole  life  is  contained  in  this  and 
his  kindred  work  on  "The  Nation." 

How  great  is  the  debt  which  the  church  owes  to  its 
heretics  is  frequently  illustrated  in  the  progress  of  Chris- 
tianity in  America.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  Unitarian 
defection  in  New  England,  and  for  the  attacks  from  Ger- 
many upon  the  historicity  of  the  gospels,  the  theologians 
of  America  might  to  this  day  have  been  engrossed  in 
"  threshing  old  straw  "  in  endless  debates  on  "  fixed  fate, 
free  will,  foreknowledge  absolute."  The  exigencies  of 
controversy  forced  the  study  of  the  original  documents  of 
the  church.  From  his  entrance  upon  his  professorship  at 
Andover,  in  1810,  the  eager  enthusiasm  of  Moses  Stuart 
made  him  the  father  of  exegetical  science  not  only  for 
America,  but  for  all  the  English-speaking  countries.  His 
not  less  eminent  pupil  and  associate,  Edward  Robinson, 
later  of  the  Union  Seminary,  New  York,  created  out  of 
nothing  the  study  of  biblical  geography.  Associating 
with  himself  the  most  accomplished  living  Arabist,  Eli 
Smith,  of  the  American  mission  at  Beirut,  he  made  those 


BIBLICAL   SCIENCE.  379 

"  Biblical  Researches  in  Palestine  "  which  have  been  the 
foundation  on  which  all  later  explorers  have  built.  An- 
other American  missionary,  Dr.  W.  M.  Thomson,  has 
given  the  most  valuable  popular  exposition  of  the  same 
subject  in  his  volumes  on  "The  Land  and  the  Book." 
With  the  exception  of  Dr.  Henry  Clay  Trumbull  in  his 
determination  of  the  site  of  Kadesh-barnea,  the  American 
successors  to  Robinson  in  the  original  exploration  of  the 
Bible  lands  have  made  few  additions  to  our  knowledge. 
But  in  the  department  of  biblical  archaeology  the  work 
of  Drs.  Ward,  Peters,  and  Hilprecht  in  the  mounds  of 
Babylonia,  and  of  Mr.  Bliss  in  Palestine,  has  added  not 
a  little  to  the  credit  of  the  American  church  against  the 
heavy  balance  which  we  owe  to  the  scholarship  of  Europe. 

Monumental  works  in  lexicography  have  been  produced 
by  Dr.  Thayer,  of  Cambridge,  on  New  Testament  Greek ; 
by  Professor  Francis  Brown,  of  New  York,  in  conjunction 
with  Canon  Driver,  of  Oxford,  on  the  languages  of  the 
Old  Testament ;  and  by  Dr.  Sophocles,  of  Cambridge,  on 
the  Byzantine  Greek. 

In  the  work  of  the  textual  criticism  of  the  Scriptures, 
notwithstanding  its  remoteness  from  the  manuscript  sources 
of  study,  America  has  furnished  two  names  that  are  held 
in  honor  throughout  the  learned  world  :  among  the  recent 
dead,  Ezra  Abbot,  of  Cambridge,  universally  beloved  and 
lamented ;  and  among  the  living,  Caspar  Rene  Gregory, 
successor  to  the  labors  and  the  fame  of  Tischendorf.  A 
third  name  is  that  of  the  late  Dr.  Isaac  H.  Hall,  the  suc- 
cessful collator  of  Syriac  New  Testament  manuscripts. 

In  those  studies  of  the  higher  criticism  which  at  the 
present  day  are  absorbing  so  much  of  the  attention  of 
biblical  scholars,  and  the  progress  of  which  is  watched 
with  reasonable  anxiety  for  their  bearing  on  that  dogma 
of  the  absolute  inerrancy  of  the  canonical  Scriptures  which 


380  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxi. 

has  so  commonly  been  postulated  as  the  foundation  of 
Protestant  systems  of  revealed  theology,  the  American 
cliurch  has  taken  eager  interest.  An  eminent,  and  in  some 
respects  the  foremost,  place  among  the  leaders  in  America 
of  these  investigations  into  the  substructure,  if  not  of  the 
Christian  faith,  at  least  of  the  work  of  the  system-builders, 
is  held  by  Professor  W.  H.  Green,  of  Princeton,  whose 
painstaking  essays  in  the  higher  criticism  have  done  much 
to  stimulate  the  studies  of  younger  men  who  have  come 
out  at  conclusions  different  from  his  own.  The  works  of 
Professors  Briggs,  of  Union  Seminary,  and  Henry  P. 
Smith,  of  Lane  Seminary,  have  had  the  invaluable  advan- 
tage of  being  commended  to  public  attention  by  ecclesias- 
tical processes  and  debates.  The  two  volumes  of  Professor 
Bacon,  of  Yale,  have  been  recognized  by  the  foremost 
scholars  of  Great  Britain  and  Germany  as  containing 
original  contributions  toward  the  solution  of  the  problem 
of  Pentateuchal  analysis.  The  intricate  critical  questions 
presented  by  the  Book  of  Judges  have  been  handled  with 
supreme  ability  by  Professor  Moore,  of  Andover,  in  his 
commentary  on  that  book.  A  desideratum  in  biblical 
literature  has  been  well  supplied  by  Professor  Bissell,  of 
Hartford,  in  a  work  on  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha. 
But  the  magmnn  opus  of  American  biblical  scholarship, 
associating  with  itself  the  best  learning  and  ability  of  other 
nations,  is  the  publication,  under  the  direction  of  Professor 
Haupt,  of  Baltimore,  of  a  critical  text  of  the  entire  Scrip- 
tures in  the  original  languages,  with  new  translations  and 
notes,  for  the  use  of  scholars. 

The  undeniably  grave  theological  difficulties  occasioned 
by  the  results  of  critical  study  have  given  rise  to  a  novel 
dogma  concerning  the  Scriptures,  which,  if  it  may  justly 
be  claimed  as  a  product  of  the  Princeton  Seminary,  would 
seem  to  discredit  the  modest  boast  of  the  venerated  Dr. 


CHURCH  HISTORY.  38  I 

Charles  Hodge,  that  "  Princeton  has  never  originated  a 
new  idea."  It  consists  in  the  hypothesis  of  aa-"j3riginal 
au.tQgraph  "  of  the  Scripturevthe^pfeci&e^pntents  of  which 
are  now  undiscoverable,  but  which  diflfered  from  any  ex- 
isting text  in  being  absolutely  free  from  error  of  any  kind. 
The  hypothesis  has  no  small  advantage  in  this,  that  if  it  is 
not  susceptible  of  proof,  it  is  equally  secure  from  refutation. 
If  not  practically  useful,  it  is  at  least  novel,  and  on  this 
ground  entitled  to  mention  in  recounting  the  contributions 
of  the  American  church  to  theology  at  a  really  perilous 
point  in  the  progress  of  biblical  study. 

The  field  of  church  history,  aside  from  local  and  sectarian 
histories,  was  late  in  being  invaded  by  American  theolo- 
gians. For  many  generations  the  theology  of  America 
was  distinctly  unhistorical.  speculative,  and  prajdncial. 
But  a  change  in  this  respect  was  inevitably  sure  to  come. 
The  strong  propensity  of  the  national  mind  toward  his- 
torical studies  is  illustrated  by  the  large  proportion  of  his- 
torical works  among  the  masterpieces  of  our  literature, 
whether  in  prose  or  in  verse.  It  would  seem  as  if  our 
conscious  poverty  in  historical  monuments  and  traditions 
had  engendered  an  eager  hunger  for  history.  No  travelers 
in  ancient  lands  are  such  enthusiasts  in  seeking  the  monu- 
ments of  remote  ages  as  those  whose  homes  are  in  regions 
not  two  generations  removed  from  the  prehistoric  wilder- 
ness. It  was  certain  that  as  soon  as  theology  should  begin 
to  be  taught  to  American  students  in  its  relation  to  the 
history  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  the  charm  of  this  method 
would  be  keenly  felt. 

We  may  assume  the  dais,  of  iAS3_  as  an  epoch  from 
which  to  date  this  ne^v  era  of  theological  stwdy.  It  was  in 
that  year  that  the  gifted,  learned,  and  inspiring  teacher, 
Henry  Boynton  Smith,  was  transferred  from  the  chair  of 


382  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxi. 

history  in  Union  Theological  Seminary,  New  York,  to  the 
chair  of  systematic  theology.  Through  his  premature  and 
most  lamented  death  the  church  has  failed  of  receiving 
that  system  of  doctrine  which  had  been  hoped  for  at  his 
hands.  But  the  historic  spirit  which  characterized  him 
has  ever  since  been  characteristic  of  that  seminary.  It  is 
illustrative  of  the  changed  tone  of  theologizing  that  after 
the  death  of  Professor  Smith,  in  the  reorganization  of  the 
faculty  of  that  important  institution,  it  was  manned  in  the 
three  chief  departments,  exegetical,  dogmatic,  and  prac- 
tical, by  men  whose  eminent  distinction  was  in  the  line  of 
church  history.  The  names  of  Hitchcock,  Schaff,  and 
Shedd  cannot  be  mentioned  without  bringing  to  mind 
some  of  the  most  valuable  gifts  that  America  has  made  to 
the  literature  of  the  universal  church.  If  to  these  we  add 
the  names  of  George  Park  Fisher,  of  Yale,  and  Bishop 
Hurst,  and  Alexander  V.  G.  Allen,  of  Cambridge,  author 
of  "  The  Continuity  of  Christian  Thought,"  and  Henry 
Charles  Lea,  of  Philadelphia,  we  have  already  vindicated 
for  American  scholarship  a  high  place  in  this  department 
of  Christian  literature. 

In  practical  theology  the  productiveness  of  the  American 
church  in  the  matter  of  sermons  has  been  so  copious  that 
even  for  the  briefest  mention  some  narrow  rule  of  exclusion 
must  be  followed.  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  a  multitude 
of  cases  the  noblest  utterances  of  the  American  pulpit, 
being  unwritten,  have  never  come  into  literature,  but  have 
survived  for  a  time  as  a  glowing  memory,  and  then  a  fading 
tradition.  The  statement  applies  to  many  of  the  most 
famous  revival  preachers ;  and  in  consequence  of  a  preva- 
lent prejudice  against  the  writing  of  sermons,  it  applies 
especially  to  the  great  Methodist  and  Baptist  preachers, 
whose  representation  on  the  shelves  of  libraries  is  most 


SF.RMOXS.  383 

disproportionate  to  their  influence  on  the  course  of  the 
kingdom  of  Christ.  Of  other  sermons, — and  good  ser- 
mons,— printed  and  pubHshed,  many  have  had  an  influence 
almost  as  restricted  and  as  evanescent  as  the  utterances  of 
the  pulpit  improvisator.  If  we  confine  ourselves  to  those 
sermons  that  have  survived  their  generation  or  won  at- 
tention beyond  the  limits  of  local  interest  or  of  sectarian 
fellowship,  the  list  will  not  be  unmanageably  long. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  Unitarian 
pulpits  of  Boston  were  adorned  with  every  literary  grace 
known  to  the  rhetoric  of  that  period.  The  luster  of 
Channing's  fame  has  outshone  and  outlasted  that  of  his 
associates ;  and  yet  these  were  stars  of  hardly  less  mag- 
nitude. The  two  Wares,  father  and  son,  the  younger 
Buckminster,  whose  singular  power  as  a  preacher  was 
known  not  only  to  wondering  hearers,  but  to  readers  on 
both  sides  of  the  ocean,  Gannett  and  Dewey — these  were 
among  them ;  and,  in  the  next  generation,  Henry  W. 
Bellows,  Thomas  Starr  King,  and  James  Freeman  Clarke. 
No  body  of  clergy  of  like  size  was  ever  so  resplendent 
with  talents  and  accomplishments.  The  names  alone  of 
those  who  left  the  Unitarian  pulpit  for  a  literary  or  political 
career — Sparks,  Everett,  Bancroft,  Emerson,  Ripley,  Pal- 
frey, Upham,  among  them — are  a  constellation  by  them- 
selves. 

To  the  merely  literary  critic  those  earnest  preachers, 
such  as  Lyman  and  Edward  Beecher,  Griflin,  Sereno 
Dwight,  Wayland,  and  Kirk,  who  felt  called  of  God  to 
withstand,  in  Boston,  this  splendid  array  of  not  less  earnest 
men,  were  clearly  inferior  to  their  antagonists.  But  they 
were  successful. 

A  few  years  later,  the  preeminent  American  writer  of 
sermons  to  be  read  and  pondered  in  every  part  of  the 
world  was  Horace  Bushnell ;  as  the  great  popular  preacher, 


3^4  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxi. 

whose  words,  caught  burning  from  his  lips,  rolled  around 
the  world  in  a  perpetual  stream,  was  Henry  Ward  Beecher. 
Widely  different  from  either  of  these,  and  yet  in  an  honor- 
able sense  successor  to  the  fame  of  both,  was  Phillips 
Brooks,  of  all  American  preachers  most  widely  beloved 
and  honored  in  all  parts  of  the  church. 

Of  living  preachers  whose  sermons  have  already  attained 
a  place  of  honor  in  libraries  at  home  and  abroad,  the  name 
of  Bishop  F.  D.  Huntington  stands  among  the  foremost ; 
and  those  who  have  been  charmed  by  the  brilliant  rhetoric 
and  instructed  from  the  copious  learning  of  his  college 
classmate,  Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs,  must  feel  it  a  wrong  done 
to  our  national  literature  that  these  gifts  should  be  chiefly 
known  to  the  reading  public  only  by  occasional  discourses 
and  by  two  valuable  studies  in  religious  history  instead  of  by 
volumes  of  sermons.  Perhaps  no  American  pulpits  have 
to-day  a  wider  hearing  beyond  the  sea  than  two  that 
stand  within  hearing  distance  of  each  other  on  New  Haven 
Green,  occupied  by  Theodore  T.  Munger  and  Newman 
Smyth.  The  pulpit  of  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  has 
not  ceased,  since  the  accession  of  Lyman  Abbott,  to  wield 
a  wide  and  weighty  influence, — less  wide,  but  in  some 
respects  more  weighty,  than  in  the  days  of  his  famous 
predecessor, — by  reason  of  a  well-deserved  reputation  for 
biblical  learning  and  insight,  and  for  candor  and  wisdom 
in  applying  Scriptural  principles  to  the  solution  of  current 
questions. 

The  early  American  theology  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a 
rhetorical  and  not  a  merely  scholastic  theology — a  theology 
to  be  preached.^  In  like  manner,  the  American  pulpit  in 
those  days  was  distinctly  theological,  like  a  professor's 
chair.  One  who  studies  with  care  the  pulpit  of  to-day, 
in  those  volumes  that  seem  to  command  the  widest  and 
1  See  above,  p.  375. 


PRACTICAL    THEOLOGY.  3S5 

most  enduring  attention,  will  find  that  it  is  to  a  lar^e 
extent  apologetic,  addressingJlselLto  the  abating  of  doubts 
and  objections  tQjheXhxistiaii  system,  or,,  recognizing  the 
existinguiauht£^uj:ging_the  religious  duties  that  are  never- 
theless incumbent  on  the  doubting  mind.  It_has_ceas.ed 
to  as^mneJJieL-Siibstantial  soundness  of  the  hearer  in  the 
main-  principles  -of  orthodox  oplniony-aad,  regards  him.  as 
one  t^-be-4^^44  to  the  church- by-attraction,  persuasion,  or 
argiimeiiL  The  result  of  this  attitude  of  the  preacher  is 
to  make  the  pulpit  studiously,  and  even. eagerly,  attractive 
and  interesting.  This  virtue  has  its  corresponding  fault. 
The  American  preacher  of  to-day  is  little  i.D., danger  of 
being  dull;  his^-peril  lies,  at  the  other  extreme.  His 
temptation  is  rather  to  the  feebleness  of  extravagant  state- 
ment, and  to  an  ovfirstrainejd-andJJieatrie-Fhe^eric  such  as 
some  persons  find  so  attractive  in  the  discourses  of  Dr. 
Talmage,  and  others  find  repulsive  and  intolerable. 

A  direction  in  which  the  literature  of  practical  theology 
in  America  is  sure  to  expand  itself  in  the  immediate  future 
is  indicated  in  the  title  of  a  recent  work  of  that  versatile 
and  useful  writer.  Dr.  Washington  Gladden,  "  Applied 
Christianity."  The  salutary  conviction  that  political  econ- 
omy cannot  be  relied  on  by  itself  to  adjust  all  the  intricate 
relations  of  men  under  modern  conditions  of  life,  that  the 
ethical  questions  that  arise  are  not  going  to  solve  themselves 
automatically  by  the  law  of  demand  and  supply,  that  the 
gospel  and  the  church  and  the  Spirit  of  Christ  have  some- 
what to  do  in  the  matter,  has  been  settling  itself  deeply 
into  the  minds  of  Christian  believers.  Xhe-impression 
that  the  questions  between  labor  and  capital,  between 
sordid  poverty  and  overgrown  wealth,  were  old-world 
questions,  of  which  we  of  the  New  World  are  relieved,  is 
effectually  dispelled.  Thus  far  there  is  not  much  of  his- 
tory to  be  written  under  this  head,  but  somewhat  of  pro- 


386  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxi. 

phecy.  It  is  now  understood,  and  felt  in  the  conscience,  that 
these  questions  are  for  every  Christian  to  consider,  and  for 
those  undertaking  the  cure  of  souls  to  make  the  subject 
of  their  faithful,  laborious  professional  study.  The  found- 
ing of  professorships  of  social  ethics  in  the  theological 
seminaries  must  lead  to  important  and  speedy  results  in 
the  efficiency  of  churches  and  pastors  in  dealing  with  this 
difficult  class  of  problems.^  But  whatever  advances  shall 
be  made  in  the  future,  no  small  part  of  the  impulse  toward 
them  will  be  recognized  as  coming  from,  or  rather  through, 
the  inspiring  and  most  Christian  humanitarian  writings  and 
the  personal  influence  and  example  of  Edward  Everett  Hale. 

In  one  noble  department  of  religious  literature,  the 
liturgical,  the  record  of  the  American  church  is  meager. 
The  reaction  among  the  early  colonists  and  many  of  the 
later  settlers  against  forms  of  worship  imposed  by  political 
authority  was  violent.  Seeking  for  a  logical  basis,  it 
planted  itself  on  the  assumption  that  no  form  (unless  an 
improvised  form)  is  permitted  in  public  worship,  except 
such  as  are  sanctioned  by  express  word  of  Scripture.  In 
their  sturdy  resolution  to  throw  ofi^  and  break  up  the 
yoke,  which  neither  they  nor  their  fathers  had  been  able 
to  bear,  of  ordinances  and  traditions  complicated  with  not 
a  little  of  debilitating  superstition,  the  extreme  Puritans 
of  England  and  Scotland  rejected  the  whole  system  of 
holy  days  in  the  Christian  year,  including  the  authentic 
anniversaries  of  Passover  and  Pentecost,  and  discontinued 
the  use  of  religious  ceremonies  at  marriages  and  funerals.^ 

1  The  program  of  Yale  Divinity  School  for  1896-97  announces  among  the 
"  required  studies  in  senior  year"  lectures  "  on  some  important  problems  of 
American  life,  such  as  Socialism,  Communism,  and  Anarchism  ;  Races  in 
the  United  States  ;  Immigration  ;  the  Modern  City  ;  tlie  Wage  System  ;  the 
Relations  of  Employer  and  Employed  ;  Social  Classes  ;  the  Causes,  Preven- 
tion, and  Punishment  of  Crime;  and  University  Settlements." 

2  Williston  Walker,  "The  Congregationalists,"  pp.  245,  246. 


HYMXODY.  387 

The  only  liturgical  compositions  that  have  come  down  to  us 
from  the  first  generations  are  the  various  attempts,  in 
various  degrees  of  harshness  and  rudeness,  at  the  versifi- 
cation of  psalms  and  other  Scriptures  for  singing.  The 
emancipation  of  the  church  from  its  bondage  to  an  artifi- 
cial dogma  came,  as  we  have  already  seen,  with  the  Great 
Awakening  and  the  introduction  of  Watts's  "  Psalms  of 
David,  Imitated  in  the  Language  of  the  New  Testament."  ^ 
After  the  Revolution,  at  the  request  of  the  General  Asso- 
ciation of  Connecticut  and  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  Timothy  Dwight  completed  the  work 
of  Watts  by  versifying  a  few  omitted  psalms,"  and  added 
a  brief  selection  of  hymns,  chiefly  in  the  grave  and  solemn 
Scriptural  style  of  Watts  and  Doddridge.  Then  followed, 
in  successive  tides,  from  England,  the  copious  hymnody 
of  the  Methodist  revival,  both  Calvinist  and  Wesleyan,  of 
the  Evangelical  revival,  and  now  at  last  of  the  Oxford 
revival,  with  its  affluence  of  translations  from  the  ancient 
hymnists,  as  well  as  of  original  hymns.  It  is  doubtless 
owing  to  this  abundant  intermittent  inflow  from  England 
that  the  production  of  American  hymns  has  been  so 
scanty.  Only  a  few  writers,  among  them  Thomas  Has- 
tings and  Ray  Palmer,  have  written  each  a  considerable 
number  of  hymns  that  have  taken  root  in  the  common  use 
of  the  church.  Not  a  few  names  besides  are  associated 
each  with  some  one  or  two  or  three  lyrics  that  have  won 
an  enduring  place  in  the  aflfections  of  Christian  worshipers. 

1  See  above,  pp.  182-184. 

2  The  only  relic  of  this  work  that  survives  in  common  use  is  the  immortal 
lyric,  "  I  love  thy  kingdom,  Lord,"  founded  on  a  motif  in  the  one  hundred 
and  thirty-seventh  psalm.  This,  with  Doddridge's  hymn,  "  My  God,  and  is 
thy  table  spread?  "'  continued  for  a  long  time  to  be  the  most  in-in-^rtant  church 
hymn  and  eucharislic  hymn  in  the  English  language.  We  should  not  per- 
h.aps  have  looked  for  the  gift  of  them  to  two  Congregationalist  ministers,  one 
in  New  England  and  the  other  in  old  En -land.  There  is  no  such  illustra- 
tion of  the  spiritual  unity  of  "  the  holy  cr.tholic  churcli,  the  fellowship  of  the 
holy,"  as  is  presented  in  a  modern  hymn-book. 


388  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxi. 

The  ''  gospel  hymns  "  which  have  flowed  from  many  pens 
in  increasing  volume  since  the  revival  of  1857  have  proved 
their  great  usefulness,  especially  in  connection  with  the 
ministry  of  Messrs.  Moody  and  Sankey ;  but  they  are, 
even  the  best  of  them,  short-lived.  After  their  season  the 
church  seems  not  unwilling  to  let  them  die. 

Soon  after  the  mid-point  of  the  nineteenth  century,  began 
a  serious  study  of  the  subject  of  the  conduct  of  public 
worship,  which  continues  to  this  day,  with  good  promise 
of  sometime  reaching  useful  and  stable  results.  In  1855 
was  published  "  Eutaxia,  or  the  Presbyterian  Liturgies: 
Historical  Sketches.  By  a  Minister  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church."  The  author,  Charles  W.  Baird,  was  a  man 
peculiarly  fitted  to  render  the  church  important  service, 
such  as  indeed  he  did  render  in  this  volume,  and  in  the 
field  of  Huguenot  history  which  he  divided  with  his 
brother,  Henry  M.  Baird.  How  great  the  loss  to  historical 
theology  through  his  protracted  feebleness  of  body  and 
his  death  may  be  conjectured,  not  measured.  This  brief 
volume  awakened  an  interest  in  the  subject  of  it  in  America, 
and  in  Scotland,  and  among  the  nonconformists  of  Eng- 
land. To  American  Presbyterians  in  general  it  was  some- 
thing like  a  surprise  to  be  reminded  that  the  sisterhood  of 
the  "  Reformed  "  sects  were  committed  by  their  earliest 
and  best  traditions  in  favor  of  liturgic  uses  in  public  wor- 
ship. At  about  the  same  time  the  fruitful  discussions  of 
the  Mercersburg  controversy  were  in  progress  in  the  Ger- 
man Reformed  Church.  "  Mercersburg  found  fault  with 
the  common  style  of  extemporaneous  public  prayer,  and 
advocated  a  revival  of  the  liturgical  church  service  of  the 
Reformation  period,  but  so  modified  and  reproduced  as  to 
be  adapted  to  the  existing  wants  of  Protestant  congrega- 
tions." ^  Each  of  these  discussions  was  followed  by  a 
1  Professor  Gerhart,  in  "  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopedia,"  p.  1475. 


LITURGICS.  389 

proposed  book  of  worship.  In  1857  was  published  by- 
Mr.  Baird  "  A  Book  of  Public  Prayer,  Compiled  from  the 
Authorized  Formularies  of  Worship  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  as  Prepared  by  the  Reformers,  Calvin,  Knox, 
Bucer,  and  others  "  ;  and  in  1858  was  set  forth  by  a  com- 
mittee of  the  German  Reformed  Church  "  A  Liturgy,  or 
Order  of  Christian  Worship."  In  1855  St.  Peter's  Pres- 
byterian Church  of  Rochester  published  its  "  Church- 
book,"  prepared  by  Mr.  L.  W.  Bacon,  then  acting  as 
pastor,  which  was  principally  notable  for  "introducing  the 
use  of  the  Psalms  in  parallelisms  for  responsive  reading — 
a  use  which  at  once  found  acceptance  in  many  churches, 
and  has  become  general  in  all  parts  of  the  country. 
Sporadic  experiments  followed  in  various  individual  con- 
gregations, looking  toward  greater  variety  or  greater 
dignity  or  greater  musical  attractiveness  in  the  services  of 
public  worship,  or  toward  more  active  participation  therein 
on  the  part  of  the  people.  But  these  experiments,  con- 
ducted without  concert  or  mutual  counsel,  often  without 
serious  study  of  the  subject,  and  with  a  feebly  esthetic 
purpose,  were  representative  of  individual  notions,  and  had 
in  them  no  promise  of  stability  or  of  fruit  after  their  kind. 
Only,  by  the  increasing  number  of  them,  they  have  given 
proof  of  an  unrest  on  this  subject  which  at  last  is  begin- 
ning to  embody  itself  in  organization  and  concerted  study 
and  enterprise.  A  fifty  years  of  mere  tentative  groping 
is  likely  to  be  followed  by  another  fifty  years  of  substantial 
progress. 

The  influence  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  upon 
this  growing  tendency  has  been  sometimes  favorable, 
sometimes  unfavorable,  but  always  important.  To  begin 
with,  it  has  held  up  before  the  whole  church  an  example 
of  prescribed  forms  for  divine  worship,  on  the  whole,  the 
best  in  all  history.     On  the  other  hand,  it  has  drawn  to 


390  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxi. 

itself  those  in  other  sects  whose  tastes  and  tendencies 
would  make  them  leaders  in  the  study  of  liturgies,  and 
thus  while  reinforcing  itself  has  hindered  the  general  ad- 
vance of  improvement  in  the  methods  of  worship.  Withal, 
its  influence  has  tended  to  narrow  the  discussion  to  the 
consideration  of  a  single  provincial  and  sectarian  tradition, 
as  if  the  usage  of  a  part  of  the  Christians  of  the  southern 
end  of  one  of  the  islands  of  the  British  archipelago  had  a 
sort  of  binding  authority  over  the  whole  western  continent. 
But  again,  on  the  other  hand,  the  broadening  of  its  own 
views  to  the  extent  of  developing  distinctly  diverse  ways 
of  thinking  among  its  clergy  and  people  has  enlarged  the 
r^  field  of  study  once  more,  and  tended  to  interest  the  church 
\generally  in  the  practical,  historical,  and  theological  aspects 
^  of  the  subject.  The  somewhat  timid  ventures  of  "  Broad  " 
and  "  Evangelical "  men  in  one  direction,  and  the  fearless 
breaking  of  bounds  in  the  other  direction  by  those  of 
"Ritualist"  sympathies,  have  done  much  to  liberate  this 
important  communion  from  slavish  uniformity  and  indolent 
traditionalism ;  and  within  a  few  years  that  has  been  ac- 
complished which  only  a  few  years  earlier  would  have  been 
deemed  impossible — the  considerable  alteration  and  im- 
provement of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 

It  is  safe  to  prognosticate,  from  the  course  of  the  history 
up  to  this  point,  that  the  subject  of  the  conduct  of  worship 
will  become  more  and  more  seriously  a  subject  of  study 
in  the  American  church  in  all  its  divisions ;  that  the  dis- 
cussions thereon  arising  will  be  attended  with  strong 
antagonisms  of  sentiment ;  that  mutual  antagonisms  within 
the  several  sects  will  be  compensated  by  affiliations  of  men 
like-minded  across  sectarian  lines;  and  that  thus,  as  many 
times  before,  particular  controversies  will  tend  to  general 
union  and  fellowship. 

One  topic  under  this  title  of  Liturgies  requires  special 


CHURCH  MUSIC.  391 

mention — the  use  of  music  in  the  church.  It  was  not  till 
the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  that  music  began 
to  be  cultivated  as  an  art  in  America.^  Up  to  that  time 
"  the  service  of  song  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  "  had  con- 
sisted, in  most  worshiping  assembHes  on  this  continent,  in 
the  singing  of  rude  literal  versifications  of  the  Psalms  and 
other  Scriptures  to  some  eight  or  ten  old  tunes  handed 
down  by  tradition,  and  variously  sung  in  various  congre- 
gations, as  modified  by  local  practice.  The  coming  in  of 
"  singing  by  rule  "  was  nearly  coincident  with  the  intro- 
duction of  Watts's  psalms  and  hymns,  and  was  attended 
with  like  agitations.  The  singing-school  for  winter  even- 
ings became  an  almost  universal  social  institution;  and 
there  actually  grew  up  an  American  school  of  composition, 
quaint,  rude,  and  ungrammatical,  which  had  great  vogue 
toward  the  end  of  the  last  century,  and  is  even  now  re- 
membered by  some  with  admiration  and  regret.  It  was 
devoted  mainly  to  psalmody  tunes  of  an  elaborate  sort,  in 
which  the  first  half-stanza  would  be  sung  in  plain  counter- 
point, after  which  the  voices  would  chase  each  other  about 
in  a  lively  imitative  movement,  coniing  out  together  tri- 
umphantly at  the  close.  They  abounded  in  forbidden 
progressions  and  empty  chords,  but  were  often  character- 
ized by  fervor  of  feeling  and  by  strong  melodies.  A 
few  of  them,  as  "  Lenox  "  and  "  Northfield,"  still  linger  in 
use ;  and  the  productions  of  this  school  in  general,  which 
amount  to  a  considerable  volume,  are  entitled  to  respect- 
ful remembrance  as  the  first  untutored  utterance  of  music 
in  America.  The  use  of  them  became  a  passionate  dehght 
to  our  grandparents ;  and  the  traditions  are  fresh  and  vivid 
of  the  great  choirs  filling  the  church  galleries  on  three  sides, 
and  tossing  the  theme  about  from  part  to  part. 

1  "  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,"  second  series,  vol.  iv.,  p.  301 ; 
quoted  in  the  "  New  Englander,"  vol.  xiii.,  p.  467  (August,  1855). 


392  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxi. 

The  use  of  these  rudely  artificial  tunes  involved  a 
gravely  important  change  in  the  course  of  public  worship. 
In  congregations  that  accepted  them  the  singing  necessarily 
became  an  exclusive  privilege  of  the  choir.  To  a  lament- 
able extent,  where  there  was  neither  the  irregular  and 
spontaneous  ejaculation  of  the  Methodist  nor  the  rubrical 
response  of  the  Episcopalian,  the  people  came  to  be  shut 
out  from  audible  participation  in  the  acts  of  public  wor- 
ship. 

A  movement  of  musical  reform  in  the  direction  of  greater 
simplicity  and  dignity  began  early  in  this  century,  when 
Lowell  Mason  in  Boston  and  Thomas  Hastings  in  New 
York  began  their  multitudinous  publications  of  psalmody. 
Between  them  not  less  than  seventy  volumes  of  music 
were  published  in  a  period  of  half  as  many  years.  Their 
immense  and  successful  fecundity  was  imitated  with  less 
success  by  others,  until  the  land  was  swamped  with  an 
annual  flood  of  church-music  books.  A  thin  diluvial 
stratum  remains  to  us  from  that  time  in  tunes,  chiefly  from 
the  pen  of  Dr.  Mason,  that  have  taken  permanent  place 
as  American  chorals.  Such  pieces  as  "  Boylston,"  "  He- 
bron," "  Rockingham,"  "  Missionary  Hymn,"  and  the 
adaptations  of  Gregorian  melodies,  "  Olmutz  "  and  "  Ham- 
burg," are  not  likely  to  be  displaced  from  their  hold  on 
the  American  church  by  more  skilled  and  exquisite  com- 
positions of  later  schools.  But  the  fertile  labors  of  the 
church  musicians  of  this  period  were  affected  by  the 
market  demand  for  new  material  for  the  singing-school, 
the  large  church  choir,  and  the  musical  convention.  The 
music  thus  introduced  into  the  churches  consisted  not  so 
much  of  hymn-tunes  and  anthems  as  of  '*  sacred  glees."  ' 

1  This  was  the  criticism  of  the  late  Rev.  Mr.  Havergal,  of  Worcester  Ca- 
thedral, to  whom  Dr.  Mason  had  sent  copies  of  some  of  his  books.  The  in- 
cident was  freely  told  by  Dr.  Mason  himself. 


CHURCH  MUSIC.  393 

Before  the  middle  of  the  century  the  Episcopal  Church 
had  arrived  at  a  point  at  which  it  was  much  looked  to 
to  set  the  fashions  in  such  matters  as  church  music  and 
architecture.  Its  influence  at  this  time  was  very  bad.  It 
was  largely  responsible  for  the  fashion,  still  widely  preva- 
lent, of  substituting  for  the  church  choir  a  quartet  of 
professional  solo  singers,  and  for  the  degradation  of  church 
music  into  the  dainty,  languishing,  and  sensuous  style 
which  such  "  artists  "  do  most  affect.  The  period  of  "  The 
Grace  Church  Collection,"  "  Greatorex's  Collection,"  and 
the  sheet-music  compositions  of  George  William  Warren 
and  John  R.  Thomas  was  the  lowest  tide  of  American 
church  music. 

A  healthy  reaction  from  this  vicious  condition  began 
about  1855,  with  the  introduction  of  hymn-and-tune  books 
and  the  revival  of  congregational  singing.  From  that  time 
the  progressive  improvement  of  the  public  taste  may  be 
traced  in  the  character  of  the  books  that  have  succeeded 
one  another  in  the  churches,  until  the  admirable  composi- 
tions of  the  modern  English  school  of  psalmody  tend  to 
predominate  above  those  of  inferior  quality.  It  is  the 
mark  of  a  transitional  period  that  both  in  church  music 
and  in  church  architecture  we  seem  to  depend  much  on 
compositions  and  designs  derived  from  older  countries. 
The  future  of  religious  art  in  America  is  sufficiently  well 
assured  to  leave  no  cause  for  hurry  or  anxiety. 

In  glancing  back  over  this  chapter,  it  will  be  strange  if 
some  are  not  impressed,  and  unfavorably  impressed,  with 
a  disproportion  in  the  names  cited  as  representative,  which 
are  taken  chiefly  from  some  two  or  three  sects.  This  may 
justly  be  referred  in  part,  no  doubt,  to  the  author's  point 
of  view  and  to  the  "  personal  equation  "  ;  but  it  is  more 
largely  due  to  the  fact  that  in  the  specialization  of  the 


394  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxl. 

various  sects  the  work  of  theological  literature  and  science 
has  been  distinctively  the  lot  of  the  Congregationalists  and 
the  Presbyterians,  and  preeminently  of  the  former.i  It  is 
matter  of  congratulation  that  the  inequality  among  the 
denominations  in  this  respect  is  in  a  fair  way  to  be  out- 
grown. 

Special  mention  must  be  made  of  the  pecuHarly  valuable 
contribution  to  the  liturgical  literature  of  America  that  is 
made  by  the  oldest  of  our  episcopal  churches,  the  Mora- 
vian. This  venerable  organization  is  rich  not  only  in  the 
possession  of  a  heroic  martyr  history,  but  in  the  inheritance 
of  Hturgic  forms  and  usages  of  unsurpassed  beauty  and 
dignity.  Before  the  other  churches  had  emerged  from  a 
half-barbarous  state  in  respect  to  church  music,  this  art 
was  successfully  cultivated  in  the  Moravian  communities 
and  missions.  In  past  times  these  have  had  comparatively 
few  points  of  contact  and  influence  with  the  rest  of  the 
church ;  but  when  the  elements  of  a  common  order  of 
divine  worship  shall  by  and  by  begin  to  grow  into  form, 
it  is  hardly  possible  that  the  Moravian  traditions  will  not 
enter  into  it  as  an  important  factor. 

A  combination  of  conditions  which  in  the  case  of  other 
bodies  in  the  church  has  been  an  effective  discouragement 
to  Hterary  production  has  applied  with  especial  force  to 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  America.  First,  its  energies 
and  resources,  great  as  they  are,  have  been  engrossed  by 
absolutely  prodigious  burdens  of  practical  labor;  and 
secondly,  its  necessary  literary  material  has  been  furnished 

1  For  many  generations  the  religious  and  theological  literature  of  the 
country  proceeded  almost  exclusively,  at  first  or  second  hand,  from  New 
England.  The  Presbyterian  historian.  Professor  Robert  Ellis  Thompson, 
remarks  that  "  until  after  the  division  of  1837  American  Presbyterianism 
made  no  important  addition  to  the  literature  of  theology"  ("  The  Presbyteri- 
ans," p.  143).  The  like  observation  is  true  down  to  a  much  more  recent 
date  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church.  Noble  progress  has  been  made  in 
both  these  denominations  in  reversing  this  record. 


CATHOLIC  LITERATURE.  395 

to  it  from  across  the  sea,  ready  to  its  hand,  or  needing 
only  the  Hght  labor  of  translation.  But  these  two  condi- 
tions are  not  enough,  of  themselves,  to  account  for  the 
very  meager  contribution  of  the  Catholic  Church  to  the 
common  religious  and  theological  literature  of  American 
Christendom.  Neither  is  the  fact  explained  by  the  general 
low  average  of  culture  among  the  Catholic  population  ;  for 
literary  production  does  not  ordinarily  proceed  from  the 
man  of  average  culture,  but  from  men  of  superior  culture, 
such  as  this  church  possesses  in  no  small  number,  and 
places  in  positions  of  undisturbed  "  learned  leisure  "  that 
would  seem  in  the  highest  degree  promotive  of  intellectual 
work.  But  the  comparative  statistics  of  the  Catholic  and 
the  Protestant  countries  and  universities  of  Germany  seem 
to  prove  conclusively  that  the  spirit  and  discipline  of  the 
Roman  Church  are  unfavorable  to  literary  productiveness 
in  those  large  fields  of  intellectual  activity  that  are  common 
and  free  alike  to  the  scholars  of  all  Christendom.  It 
remains  to  be  seen  whether  the  stimulating  atmosphere 
and  the  free  and  equal  competitions  of  the  New  World 
will  not  show  their  invigorating  effect  in  the  larger  activity 
of  Catholic  scholars,  and  their  liberation  from  within  the 
narrow  Hnes  of  polemic  and  defensive  hterature.  The 
republic  of  Christian  letters  has  already  shown  itself  prompt 
to  welcome  accessions  from  this  quarter.  The  signs  are 
favorable.  Notwithstanding  severe  criticisms  of  their 
methods  proceeding  from  the  Catholic  press,  or  rather  in 
consequence  of  such  criticisms,  the  Catholic  institutions  of 
higher  learning  are  rising  in  character  and  in  public  respect ; 
and  the  honorable  enterprise  of  establishing  at  Washington 
an  American  Catholic  university,  on  the  upbuilding  of 
which  shall  be  concentrated  the  entire  intellectual  strength 
and  culture  of  this  church,  promises  an  invigorating  influ- 
ence that  shall  extend  through  that  whole  system  of  edu- 


396  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxi. 

cational  institutions  which  the  church  has  set  on  foot  at 
immense  cost,  and  not  with  wholly  satisfactory  results. 

Recent  events  in  the  CathoHc  Church  in  America  tend 
to  reassure  all  minds  on  an  important  point  on  which  not 
bigots  and  alarmists  only,  but  liberal-minded  citizens 
apostoHcally  willing  to  "  look  not  only  on  their  own  things 
but  also  on  the  things  of  others,"  have  found  reasonable 
ground  for  anxiety.  The  American  Catholic  Church, 
while  characterized  in  all  its  ranks,  in  respect  of  loyal 
devotion  to  the  pope,  by  a  high  type  of  ultramontane 
orthodoxy,  is  to  be  administered  on  patriotic  American 
principles.  The  brief  term  of  service  of  Monsignor  Satolli 
as  papal  legate  clothed  with  plenipotentiary  authority  from 
the  Roman  see  stamped  out  the  scheme  called  from  its 
promoter  "  Cahenslyism,"  which  would  have  divided  the 
American  Catholic  Church  into  permanent  alien  commu- 
nities, conserving  each  its  foreign  language  and  organized 
under  its  separate  hierarchy.  The  organization  of  parishes 
to  be  administered  in  other  languages  than  English  is 
suffered  only  as  a  temporary  necessity.  The  deadly  war- 
fare against  the  American  common-school  system  has 
abated.  And  the  anti-American  denunciations  contained 
in  the  bull  and  syllabus  of  December  8,  1864,  are  openly 
renounced  as  lacking  the  note  of  infallibility.^ 

1  So  (for  example)  Bishop  O'Gorman,  "  The  Roman  Catholics,"  p.  434. 
And  yet,  at  the  time,  the  bull  with  its  appendix  was  certainly  looked  upon  as 
"  an  act  of  infallibility."  See,  in  "  La  Bulle  Quanta  Cura  et  la  Civilisation 
Moderne,  par  I'Abb^  Pdage  "  (Paris,  1865),  the  utterances  of  all  the  French 
bishops.  The  language  of  Bishop  Plantier  of  Poitiers  seems  decisive:  "  The 
Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ,  doctor  and  pastor  charged  with  the  teaching  and  ruling 
of  the  entire  church,  addressed  to  the  bishops,  and  through  them  to  all  the 
Christian  universe,  instructions,  the  object  of  which  is  to  settle  the  mind  and 
enlighten  the  conscience  on  sundry  points  of  Christian  doctrine  and  morals  " 
(pp.  103,  104).  See  also  pp.  445,  450.  This  brings  it  within  the  Vatican 
Council's  definition  of  an  infallible  utterance.  But  we  are  bound  to  bear  in 
mind  that  not  only  is  the  infallible  authority  of  this  manifesto  against  "  prog- 
ress, liberalism,  and  modern  civilization  "  disclaimed,  but  the  meaning  of  it, 
which  seems  unmistakably  clear,  is  disputed.     "  The  syllabus,"  says  Bishop 


PAPAL    IXFALLIBILITY.  39/ 

Of  course,  as  in  all  large  communities  of  vigorous  vitality, 
there  will  be  mutually  antagonist  parties  in  this  body ; 
but  it  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  with  the  growth  and 
acclimatization  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  America  that 
party  will  eventually  predominate  which  is  most  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  ruling  ideas  of  the  country  and  the  age. 

O'Gornian,  "  is  technical  and  legal  in  its  language,   .   .   .  and  needs  lobe  in- 
terpreted to  the  lay  reader  by  the  ecclesiastical  lawyer  "  (p.  435). 

A  seriously  important  desideratum  in  theological  literature  is  some  au- 
thoritative canon  of  the  infallible  utterances  of  the  Roman  see.  It  is  difficult 
to  fix  on  any  one  of  them  the  infallible  authority  of  which  is  not  open  to  dis- 
pute within  the  church  itself;  while  the  liability  of  them  to  misinterpretation 
(as  in  the  case  of  the  Quanta  Cum  and  Syllabus)  brings  in  still  another  ele- 
m»nt  of  vagueness  and  uncertainty. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

TENDENCIES    TOWARD    A   MANIFESTATION    OF    THE 
UNITY    OF    THE    AMERICAN     CHURCH. 

The  three  centuries  of  history  which  we  have  passed 
under  rapid  review  comprise  a  series  of  poHtical  events  of 
the  highest  importance  to  mankind.  We  have  seen,  from 
our  side-point  of  view,  the  planting,  along  the  western 
coast  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  jyithout  mutual  concert  or 
common  direction,  of  many  independent  germs  of  civiliza- 
tion. So  many  of  these  as  survived  the  perils  of  infancy 
we  have  seen  growing  to  a  lusty  youth,  and  becoming 
drawn  each  to  each  by  ties  of  common  interest  and 
mutual  fellowship.  Releasing  themselves  from  colonial 
dependence  on  a  transatlantic  power,  we  find  these  several 
communities,  now  grown  to  be  States,  becoming  conscious, 
through  common  perils,  victories,  and  hopes,  of  national 
unity  and  life,  and  ordaining  institutes  of  national  govern- 
ment binding  upon  all.  The  strong  vitality  of  the  new 
nation  is  proved  by  its  assimilating  to  itself  an  immense 
mass  of  immigrants  from  all  parts  of  Europe,  and  by  ex- 
panding itself  without  essential  change  over  the  area  of  a 
r  continent.  It  triumphs  again  and  again,  and  at  last  in  a 
struggle  that  shakes  the  world,  over  passions  and  interests 
that  threaten  schism  in  the  body  politic,  and  gives  good 
reason  to  its  friends  to  boast  the  solid  unity  of  the  repub- 
398 


CIVIL    UNITY;   RELIGIOUS  SCHISM.  399 

lie  as  the  strongest  existing  fact  in  the  political  world. 
The  very  great  aggrandizement  of  the  nation  has  been  an 
affair  of  the  last  sixty  years ;  but  already  it  has  recorded 
itself  throughout  the  vast  expanse  of  the  continent  in 
monuments  of  architecture  and  engineering  worthy  of  the 
national  strength. 

The  ecclesiastical  history  which  has  been  recounted  ir. 
this  volume,  covering  the  same  territory  and  the  same 
period  of  time,  runs  with  equal  pace  in  many  respects 
parallel  with  the  political  history,  but  in  one  important 
respect  with  a  wide  divergence.  As  with  civilization  so 
with  Christianity :  the  germs  of  it,  derived  from  different 
regions  of  Christendom,  were  planted  without  concert  of 
purpose,  and  often  with  distinct  cross-purposes,  in  different 
seed-plots  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  Yarying  in  polity, 
in  forms  of  dogmaticstatement,  and  even  in  language,  the 
diverse  growths  were  made,  through  wonders  of  spiritual 
influence  and  through  external  stress  of  trial,  t^ieeLtheir 
un.ity-in  the  one-iaith.  The  course  of  a  common  experi- 
ence tended  iO£Stablish  a  predominant  type  of  religious 
life  the  influence.oi  which  has  been  everywhere  felt,  even 
when  it  has  not  been  consented  to.  The  vital  strength  of 
the  American  church,  as  of  the  American  nation,  has  been 
subjected  to  the  test  of  the  importation  of  enormous  masses 
of  more  or  less  uncongenial  population,  and  has  shown 
an  amazing:43Qwer  of  digestion  and  assimilation.  Its  re- 
sources have  been  taxed  by  the  providential  imposition  of 
burdens  of  duty  and  responsibility  such,  in  magnitude  and 
weight,  as  never  since  the  early  preaching  of  the  gospel 
have  pressed  upon  any  single  generation  of  the  church. 
Within  the  space  of  a  single  lifetime,  at  an  expenditure  of 
toil  and  treasure  which  it  is  idle  to  attempt  to  compute, 
the  wide  and  desolate  wilderness,  as  fast  as  civilization  has 
invaded  it,  has  been  occupied  by  the  church  with  churches, 


400  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxii. 

schools,  colleges,  and  seminaries  of  theology,  with  pastors, 
evangelists,  and  teachers,  and,  in  one  way  or  another,  has 
been  constrained  to  confess  itself  Christian.  The  conti- 
nent which  so  short  a  time  ago  had  been  compassionately 
looked  upon  from  across  the  sea  as  missionary  ground  has 
become  a  principal  base  of  supplies,  and  recruiting-ground 
for  men  and  women,  for  missionary  operations  in  ancient 
lands  of  heathenism  and  of  a  decayed  Christianity. 

So  much  for  the  parallel.  The  divergence  is  not  less 
impressive.  In  contrast  with  the  solid  political  unity  into 
which  the  various  and  incongruous  elements  have  settled 
1  themselves,  the  unity  of  the  Christian  church  is  manifested 
by  oneness  neither  of  jurisdiction  nor  of  confederation, 
nor  even  by  diplomatic  recognition  and  correspondence. 
Out  of  the  total  population  of  the  United  States,  amount- 
ing, according  to  the  census  of  1890,  to  62,622,000  souls, 
the  57,000,000  accounted  as  Christians,  including  20,- 
000,000  communicant  church-members,  are  gathered  into 
165,297  congregations,  assembling  in  142,000  church 
edifices  containing  43,000,000  sittings,  and  valued  (to- 
gether with  other  church  property)  at  $670,000,000;  and 
are  served  in  the  ministry  of  the  gospel  by  more  than 
1 1 1,000  ministers.^  But  this  great  force  is  divided  among 
^_^  143  mutually  independent  sects,  larger  and  smaller. 
Among  these  sects  is  recognized  no  controlling  and  coor- 
dinating authority ;  neither  is  there  any  common  leader- 
ship; neither  is  there  any  system  of  mutual  counsel  and 

1  These  statistical  figures  are  taken  from  the  authoritative  work  of  Dr. 
H.K.Carroll,  "The  Religious  ForcesoftheUnited  States  "  (American Church 
History  Series,  vol.  i. ).  The  volume  gives  no  estimate  of  the  annual  ex- 
penditure for  the  maintenance  of  religious  institutions.  If  we  assume  the 
small  figure  of  $500  as  the  average  annual  expenditure  in  connection  with 
each  house  of  worship,  it  makes  an  aggregate  of  $82,648,500  for  parochial 
expenses.  The  annual  contributions  to  Protestant  foreign  and  home  mis- 
sions amount  to  $7,000,000.  (See  above,  pp.  358,  359.)  The  amounts  an- 
nually contributed  as  free  gifts  for  Christian  schools  and  colleges  and  hospi- 
tals and  other  charitable  objects  can  at  present  be  only  conjectured, 


AMERICAN  SECTARIAXISM.  40 1 

concert.  The  mutual  relations  of  the  sects  are  sometimes 
those  of  respect  and  good  will,  sometimes  of  sharp  com- 
petition and  jealousy,  sometimes  of  eager  and  conscientious 
hostility.  All  have  one  and  the  same  unselfish  and  re- 
ligious aim — to  honor  God  in  serving  their  fellow-men  ; 
and  each  one,  in  honestly  seeking  this  supreme  aim,  is 
affected  by  its  corporate  interests,  sympathies,  and  antip- 
athies. 

This  situation  is  too  characteristic  of  America,  and  too 
distinctly  connected  with  the  whole  course  of  the  antece- 
dent history,  not  to  be  brought  out  with  emphasis  in  this 
concluding  chapter.  In  other  lands  the  church  is  main- 
tained, through  the  power  of  the  civil  government,  under 
the  exclusive  control  of  a  single  organization,  in  which 
the  element  of  popular  influence  may  be  wholly  wanting, 
or  may  be  present  (as  in  many  of  the  "  Reformed  "  polities) 
in  no  small  measure.  In  others  yet,  through. government 
influence  and  favor,  a  strong  predominance  is  given  to  one 
organized  communion,  under  the  shadow  of  which  dissen- 
tient minorities  are  tolerated  and  protected.  Under  the 
ahgnjiitp  ffppdnm  and  pqnalil-y  of  fhe  Ameriran  system 
therp^is_!iot  so  muchLag^^redpminance  of  any  one  of  the 
sects.  No  one  of  them  is  so  strong  and  numerous  but 
that  it  is  outnumbered  and  outweighed  by  the  aggregate 
of  the  two  next  to  it.  At  present,  in  consequence  of  the 
rush  of  immigration,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  largely 
in  advance  of  any  single  denomination  besides,  but  is  in- 
ferior in  numerical  strength  and  popular  influence  to  the 
Methodists  and  Baptists  combined — if  they  were  com- 
bined. 

And  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  comminution  of  the 
church  is  frankly  accepted,  for  reasons  assigned,  not  only 
as  an  inevitable  drawback  to  the  blessings  of  religious 
freedom,  but  as  a  good  thing  in  itself.     A  weighty  sen- 


402  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxii. 

'  tence  of  James  Madison  undoubtedly  expresses  the  pre- 
vailing sentiment  among  Americans  who  contemplate  the 
subject  merely  from  the  political  side :  "  In  a  free  govern- 
ment the  security  for  civil  rights  must  be  the  same  as  that 
for  religious  rights.  It  consists,  in  the  one  case,  in  the 
multiplicity  of  interests,  and,  in  the  other,  in  the  multi- 
plicity of  sects.  The  degree  of  security  in  both  cases  will 
L  depend  on  the  number  of  interests  and  sects."  ^  And  no 
student  of  history  can  deny  that  there  is  much  to  justify 
the  jealousy  with  which  the  lovers  of  civil  liberty  watch 
the  climbing  of  any  sect,  no  matter  how  purely  spiritual 
its  constitution,  toward  a  position  of  command  in  popular 
influence.  The  influence  of  the  leaders  of  such  a  sect  may 
be  nothing  more  than  the  legitimate  and  well-deserved 
influence  of  men  of  superior  wisdom  and  virtue ;  but  when 
reinforced  by  the  weight  of  official  religious  character,  and 
backed  by  a  majority,  or  even  a  formidable  minority,  of 
voters  organized  in  a  religious  communion,  the  feehng  is 
sure  to  gain  ground  that  such  power  is  too  great  to  be 
trusted  to  the  hands  even  of  the  best  of  men.  Whatever 
sectarian  advantage  such  a  body  may  achieve  in  the  state 
by  preponderance  of  number  will  be  more  than  offset  by 
the  public  suspicion  and  the  watchful  jealousy  of  rival 
\  sects ;  and  the  weakening  of  it  by  division,  or  the  subor- 
dination of  it  by  the  overgrowth  of  a  rival,  is  sure  to  be 
'  regarded  with  general  complacency. 

It  is  not  altogether  a  pleasing  object  of  contemplation 
— the  citizerL-and-the^statesnian  looking  with  contentment 
on  the  schism  of  the  church  as  averting  a  danger  to  the 
state.  It  is  hardly  more  gratifying  when  we  find  ministers 
of  the  church  themselves  accepting  the  condition  of  schism 
as  being,  on  the  whole,  a  very  good  condition  for  the 
church  of  Christ,  if  not,  indeed,  the  best  possible.     It  is 

1  The  "  Federalist,"  No.  51. 


CHURCH   COMPETiriOXS.  403 

quite  unreservedly  argued  that  the  principle,  "  Competition 
is  the  life  of  business,"  is  applicable  to  spiritual  as  well  as 
secular  concerns ;  and  the  "  emulations  "  reprobated  by 
the  Apostle  Paul  as  "  works  of  the  flesh  "  are  frankly  ap- 
pealed to  for  promoting  the  works  of  the  spirit.  This 
debasing  of  the  motive  of  church  work  is  naturally  at- 
tended by  a  debasement  of  the  means  employed.  The 
competitive  church  resorts^lCLsirange  business  devices  to 
secure  its  needed  revenue.  "  He  that  giveth  "  is  induced 
to  give,  not  "  with  simplicity,"  but  with  a  view  to  inciden- 
tal advantages,  and  a  distinct  understanding  is  maintained 
between  the  right  hand  and  the  left.  The  extent  and 
variety  of  this  influence  on  church  life  in  America  afi"ord 
no  occasion  for  pride,  but  the  mention  of  them  could  not  / 
rightly  be  omitted.  It  remains  for  the  future  to  decide  { 
whether  they  must  needs  continue  as  an  inevitable  atten- 
dant on  the  voluntary  system. 

Sectarian  divisions  tend  strongly  to  perpetuate  them- 
selves. The  starting  of  schism  is  easy  and  quick;  the 
healing  of  it  is  a  matter  of  long  diplomatic  negotiations. 
In  a  very  short  time  the  division  of  the  church,  with  its 
necessary  relations  to  property  and  to  the  employment  of 
officials,  becomes  a  vested  interest.  Provision  for  large 
expenditure  unnecessary,  or  even  detrimental,  to  the  gen- 
eral interests  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  which  had  been 
instituted  in  the  first  place  at  heavy  cost  to  the  many,  is 
not  to  be  discontinued  without  more  serious  loss  to  influ- 
ential individuals.  Those  who  would  set  themselves  about 
the  healing  of  a  schism  must  reckon  upon  personal  and 
property  interests  to  be  conciliated.  ^ 

This  least  amiable  characteristic  of  the  growth  of  the  ] 
Christian  church  in  America  is  not  without  its  compensa- 
tions.    The  very  fact  of  the  existence,  in  presence  of  one 
another,  of  these  multitudinous  rival  sects,  all  equal  before  \ 


404  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxil. 

the  law,  tends  in  the  long  run,  under  the  influence  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  peace,  to  a  large  and  comprehensive  fellow- 
ship.^ The  widely  prevalent  acceptance  of  existing  con- 
'  ditions  as  probably  permanent,  even  if  not  quite  normal, 
softens  the  mutual  reproaches  of  rival  parties.  The  pre- 
sumption is  of  course  implied,  if  not  asserted,  in  the  exist- 
ence of  any  Christian  sect,  that  it  is  holding  the  absolute 
right  and  truth,  or  at  least  more  nearly  that  than  other 
sects;  and  the  inference,  to  a  religious  mind,  is  that  the 
right  and  true  must,  in  the  long  run,  prevail.  But  it  is 
only  with  a  high  act  of  faith,  and  not  as  a  matter  of  rea- 
sonable probability,  that  any  sect  in  America  can  venture 
to  indulge  itself  in  the  expectation  of  a  supremacy,  or 
even  a  predominance,  in  American  Christendom.  The 
strongest  in  numbers,  in  influence,  in  prestige,  however 
tempted  to  assert  for  itself  exclusive  or  superior  rights,  is 
compelled  to  look  about  itself  and  find  itself  overwhelm- 
ingly outnumbered  and  outdone  by  a  divided  communion 
— and  yet  a  communion — of  those  whom  Christ  "  is  not 
ashamed  to  call  his  brethren  " ;  and  just  in  proportion  as 
it  has  the  spirit  of  Christ,  it  is  constrained  in  its  heart  to 
treat  them  as  brethren  and  to  feel  toward  them  as  brethren. 

1  "  This  habit  of  respecting  one  another's  rights  cherishes  a  feehng  of 
mutual  respect  and  courtesy.  If  on  the  one  hand  the  spirit  of  independence 
fosters  individualism,  on  the  other  it  favors  good  fellowship.  All  sects  are 
equal  before  the  law.  .  .  .  Hence  one  great  cause  of  jealousy  and  distrust 
is  removed ;  and  though  at  times  sectarian  zeal  may  lead  to  rivalries  and  con- 
troversies unfavorable  to  unity,  on  the  other  hand  the  independence  and 
equality  of  the  churches  favor  their  voluntary  cooperation  ;  and  in  no  coun- 
try is  the  practical  union  of  Christians  more  beautifully  or  more  beneficiaily 
exemplified  than  in  the  United  States.  With  the  exception  of  the  Roman 
Catholics,  Christians  of  all  communions  are  accustomed  to  work  together  in 
the  spirit  of  mutual  concession  and  confidence,  in  educational,  r:iissionary, 
and  philanthropic  measures  for  the  general  good.  TJ^e  niottn  nf_tlie.^ate 
holds  of  the  church  also,  E^^hiriklls^MMMJii.  As  a  rule,  a  bigoted  church  or 
a  fierce  sectarian  is  despised"  (Dr.  J.  P.  Thompson,  in  "Church  and 
State  in  the  United  States,"  pp.  98,  99).  See,  to  the  like  purport,  the  judi- 
cious remarks  of  Mr.  Bryce,  "  American  Commonwealth,"  vol.  ii.,  pp.  568, 
664. 


I 
I 


mSUS   TOWARD    UNITY.  405 

Its  protest  against  what  it  regards  as  their  errors  and  defects 
is  nowise  weakened  by  the  most  unreserved  manifestations 
of  respect  and  good  will  as  toward  fellow-Christians.  Thus 
it  comes  to  pass  that  the  observant  traveler  from  other 
countries,  seeking  the  distinctive  traits  of  American  social 
life,  "notes  a  kindlier  feeling  between  all  denominations, 
Roman  Catholics  included,  a  greater  readiness  to  \^•ork 
together  for  common  charitable  aims,  than  between  Catho- 
lics and  Protestants  in  France  or  Germany,  or  between 
Anglicans  and  nonconformists  in  England."  ^ 

There  are  many  indications,  in  the  recent  history  of  the 
American  church,  poiatjng  forward  toward  somc-iiigher 
manifestadon^fthje  true  unity,  of  the  church  than  is  to  be 
found  in  occasional,  or  even  habitual,  expressions  of  mu- 
tual good  will  passing  to  and  fro  among  sharply  comj^et- 
ing  and  often  antagonist  sects.  Instead  of  easy-going 
and  playful  felicitations  on  the  multitude  of  sects«as  con- 
tributing to  the  total  effectiveness  of  the  church,  such  as 
used  to  be  common  enough  on  "  anniversary  "  platforms, 
we  hear,  in  one  frtrnr  and  another,  the  acknowledgment 
that  the^vided  and  subdivided  state  of  American  Chris- 
tendom is  not  rights  but  wrong.  Whose  is  the  wrong 
need  not  be  decided;  certainly  it  does  not  wholly  belong 
to  the  men  of  this  generation  or  of  this  country ;  we  are 
heirs  of  the  schisms  of  other  lands  and  ages,  and  have 
added  to  them  schisms  of  our  own  making.  The  matter 
begins  to  be  taken  soberly  and  seriously.  The  tender 
entreaty  of  the  Apostle  Paul  not  to  suffer  ourselves  to  be 
split  up  into  sects  -  begins  to  get  a  hearing  in  the  con- 
science. The  nisits  toward  a  more  manifest  union  among 
Christian  believers  has  long  been  growing  more  and  more 

1  Bryce,  "  American  Commonwealth,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  568. 

2  I  Cor.  i.  10. 


406  AMERICAX  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap,  xxii, 

'r'     I     distinctly  visible,  and  is  at  the  present  day  one  of  the  most 

^     I ^conspicuous  signs  of  the  times. 

Already  in  the  early  history  we  have  observed  a  tend- 
ency toward  the  healing,  in  America,  of  differences  im- 
ported from  over  sea.  Such  was  the  commingling  of 
Separatist  and  Puritan  in  New  England;  the  temporary 
alliance  of  Congregationalist  and  Presbyterian  to  avert  the 
imposition  of  a  state  hierarchy ;  the  combination  of  Quaker 
and  Roman  Catholic  to  defeat  a  project  of  religious  op- 
pression in  Maryland ;  the  drawing  together  of  Lutheran 
and  Reformed  Germans  for  common  worship,  under  tlie 
saintly  influence  of  the  Moravian  Zinzendorf;  and  the 
"  Plan  of  Union  "  by  which  New  Englander  and  Scotch- 
Irishman  were  to  labor  in  common  for  the  evangelization 
7  of  the  new  settlements.^  These  were  sporadic  instances  of 
^  a  tendency  that  was  by  and  by  to  become  happily  epi- 
\  demic.  A  more  important  instance  of  the  same  tendency 
was  the  organization  of  societies  for  charitable  work  which 
should  unite  the  gifts  and  personal  labors  of  the  Christians 
of  the  whole  continent.  The  chief  period  of  these  organi- 
zations extended  from  1810,  the  date  of  the  beginning  of 
the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Mis- 
sions, to  1826,  when  the  American  Home  Missionary 
Society  was  founded.^  The  "  catholic  basis  "  on  which 
they  were  established  was  dictated  partly  by  the  conscious 
weakness  of  the  several  sects  as  they  drew  near  to  under- 
takings formidable  even  to  their  united  forces,  and  partly 
by  the  glow  of  fraternal  affection,  and  the  sense  of  a  com- 
mon spiritual  life  pervading  the  nation,  with  which  the 
church  had  come  forth  from  the  fervors  of  "  the  second 
awakening."^     The  societies,   representing  the   common 

1  See  above,  pp.  6i,  95,  190,  206,  220,  258. 

2  See  above,  pp.  252-259. 

3  Among  the  New  England  Congregationalists  the  zeal  for  union  went  so 
far  as  to  favor  combination  with  other  sects  even  in  the  work  of  training  can- 


'^  CATHOLIC  BASIS"    SOCIETIES.  407 

faith  and  cliarity  of  the  whole  church  as  distuiguished 
from  the  pecuHarities  of  the  several  sects,  drew  to  them- 
selves the  affection  and  devotion  of  Christian  hearts  to  a 
degree  which,  to  those  who  highly  valued  these  distinc- 
tions, seemed  to  endanger  important  interests.  And,  in- 
deed, the  situation  was  anomalous,  in  w^hich  the  sectarian 
divisions  of  the  Christian  people  were  represented  in  the 
churches,  and  their  catholic  unity  in  charitable  societies. 
It  would  have  seemed  more  Pauhne,  not  to  say  more 
Christian,  to  have  had  voluntary  societies  for  the  secta- 
rian work,  and  kept  the  churches  for  Christian  communion. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  High-church  champions,  on  one  side 
and  another,  soon  began  to  shout  to  their  adherent.?,  "  To 
your  tents,  O  Israel !  "  Bishop  Hobart  played  not  in  vain 
upon  his  pastoral  pipe  to  whistle  back  his  sheep  from 
straying  outside  of  his  pinfold,  exhorting  them,  "  in  their 
endeavors  for  the  general  advancement  of  religion,  to  use 
only  the  instrumentality  of  their  own  church."  ^  And  a 
jealousy  of  the  growing  influence  of  a  wide  fellowship,  in 
charitable  labors,  with  Christians  of  other  names,  led  to  the 
enunciation  of  a  like  doctrine  by  High-church  Presbyte- 
rians,- and  contributed  to  the  convulsive  and  passionate 
rending  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  in  1837,  into  nearly 

didates  for  the  ministry.  Among  the  "  honorary  vice-presidents  "  of  their 
"  American  Education  Society  "  was  Bishop  Griswold,  of  the  Eastern  Diocese 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church. 

1  Sermon  at  consecration  of  Bishop  H.  U.  Onderdonk,  1827. 

2  Minutes  of  the  Convention  of  Delegates  met  to  consult  on  Missions  in 
the  City  of  Cincinnati,  K.v>.  1831.  The  position  of  the  bishop  was  more 
logical  than  that  of  the  convention,  forasmuch  as  he  held,  by  a  powerful 
effort  of  faith,  that  "  his  own  "  church  is  the  church  of  the  United  States,  in 
an  exclusive  sense ;  while  the  divines  at  Cincinnati  earnestly  repudiate  such 
exclusive  pretensions  for  their  church,  and  hold  to  a  plurality  of  sectarian 
churches  on  the  same  territory,  each  one  of  which  is  divinely  invested  with 
the  prerogatives  and  duties  of  "the  church  of  Christ."  A  iisiis  loqnendi 
which  seems  to  be  hopelessly  imbedded  in  the  English  language  applies  the 
word  "  church"  to  each  one  of  the  several  sects  into  which  the  church  is 
divided.  It  is  this  corruption  of  language  which  leads  to  the  canonization 
of  schism  as  a  divine  ordinance. 


408  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxii. 

equal  fragments.  So  effective  has  been  the  centrifugal 
force  that  of  the  extensive  system  of  societies  which  from 
the  year  1810  onward  first  organized  works  of  national 
beneficence  by  enhsting  the  cooperation  of  "  all  evangeli- 
cal Christians,"  the  American  Bible  Society  alone  con- 
tinues to  represent  any  general  and  important  combination 
from  among  the  different  denominations. 

For  all  the  waning  of  interest  in  the  "catholic  basis" 
societies,  the  sacred  discontent  of  the  Christian  people  with 
sectarian  division  continued  to  demand  expression.  How 
early  the  aspiration  for  an  ecumenical  council  of  evangeli- 
cal Christendom  became  articulate,  it  may  not  be  easy  to 
discover.^  In  the  year  1846  the  aspiration  was  in  some 
measure  realized  in  the  first  meeting  of  the  Evangelical 
Alliance  at  London.  No  more  mistakes  were  made  in  this 
meeting  than  perhaps  were  necessarily  incident  to  a  first 
~  experiment  in  untried  work.  Almost  of  course  the  good 
people  began  with  the  question,  What  good  men  shall  we 
keep  out?  for  it  is  a  curious  fact,  in  the  long  and  interest- 
ing history  of  efforts  after  Christian  union,  that  they  com- 
monly take  the  form  of  efforts  so  to  combine  many 
L Christians  as  to  exclude  certain  others.  In  this  instance, 
beginning  with  the  plan  of  including  none  but  Protestant 
Christians,  they  proceeded  at  once  to  frame  a  platform 
that  should  bar  out  that  "  great  number  of  the  best  and 
holiest  men  in  England  who  are  found  among  the  Qua- 

1  The  first  proposal  for  such  an  assembly  seems  to  be  contained  in  an  ar- 
ticle by  L.  Bacon  in  the  "  New  Englander  "  for  April,  1844.  "  Why  might 
there  not  be,  ere  long,  some  general  conference  in  which  the  various  evan- 
gelical bodies  of  this  country  and  Great  Britain  and  of  the  continent  of  Eu- 
rope should  be  in  some  way  represented,  and  in  which  the  great  cause  of 
reformed  and  spiritual  Christianity  throughout  the  world  should  be  made  the 
subject  of  detailed  and  deliberate  consideration,  with  prayer  and  praise? 
That  would  be  an  '  ecumenical  council '  such  as  never  yet  assembled  since 
the  apostles  parted  from  each  other  at  Jerusalem— a  council  not  for  legisla- 
tion and  division,  but  for  union  and  communion  and  for  the  extension  of  the 
saving  knowledge  of  Christ  "  (pp.  253,  254). 


ORGANIZED   CATHOLICITY.  4O9 

kers,"  thus  making  up,  "  designedly  and  with  their  eyes 
open,  a  schismatic  unity — a  unity  composed  of  one  part 
of  God's  elect,  to  the  exclusion  of  another;  and  this  in  a 
grand  effort  after  the  very  unity  of  the  body  of  Christ."  ' 
But  in  spite  of  this  and  other  like  mistakes,  or  rather  be- 
cause of  them  (for  it  is  through  its  mistakes  that  the 
church  is  to  learn  the  right  way),  the  early  and  unsuccess- 
ful beginnings  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  marked  a  stage 
in  the  slow  progress  toward  a  "  manifestation  of  the  sons 
of  God  "  by  their  love  toward  each  other  and  toward  the 
common  Lord. 

It  is  in  large  part  the  eager  appetency  for  some  mani- 
festation of  interconfessional  fellowship  that  has  hastened 
the  acceptance  of  such  organizations  as  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  and  the  Young  People's  Society  of 
Christian  Endeavor;  just  as,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  the 
conscientious  fear,  on  the  part  of  watchful  guardians  of 
sectarian  interests,  that  habitual  fellowship  across  the 
boundary  lines  of  denominations  may  weaken  the  alle- 
giance to  the  sect,  which  has  induced  the  many  attempts  at 
substituting  associations  constituted  on  a  narrower  basis. 
But  the  form  of  organization  which  most  comprehensiyely 
illustrates  thejyjiity^of_the  church  is  that  "  Charity  Organi- 
zation "  which  has  grown  to  be  a  necessity  to  the  social  life 
of  cities  and  considerable  towns,  fi^irnishing.a  centraLoffice 
of  mutual  correspondence  and  coordjnation_to,all  churches 
and  societies  and  persons  engaged  in  the  Christian  work 
of  relieving  poverty  and  distress.  This  central  bureau  of 
charitable  cooperation  is  not  the  less  a  center  of  catholic 
fellowship  for  the  fact  that  it  does  not  shut  its  door 
against  societies  not  distinctively  Christian,  like  Masonic 
fraternities,  nor  even  against  societies  distinctively  non- 

1  See  the  pungent  strictures  of  Horace  Bushnell  on  "  The  Evangelical  Al- 
liance," in  the  "  New  Englander  "  for  January,  1847,  p.  109. 


410  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxiL 

Christian,  like  Hebrew  synagogues  and  "  societies  of  ethi- 
cal culture."  We  are  coming  to  discover  that  the  essence 
of  Christian  fellowship  does  not  consist  in  keeping  people 
out.  Neither,  so  long  as  the  apostolic  rubric  of  Christian 
worship  1  remains  unaltered,  is  it  to  be  denied  that  the 
fellowship  thus  provided  for  is  a  fellowship  in  one  of  the 
sacraments  of  Christian  service. 

A  notable  advance  in  true  catholicity  of  communion  is 
reported  from  among  the  churches  and  scattered  missions 
in  Maine.  Hitherto,  in  the  various  movements  of  Chris- 
tian union,  it  was  common  to  attempt  to  disarm  the  suspi- 
cions of  zealous  sectarians  by  urgent  disclaimers  of  any 
intent  or  tendency  to  infringe  on  the  rights  or  interests  of 
the  several  sects,  or  impair  their  claim  to  a  paramount  al- 
legiance from  their  adherents.  The  Christians  of  Maine, 
facing  tasks  of  evangelization  more  than  sufficient  to  occupy 
all  their  resources  even  when  well  economized  and  squan- 
dering nothing  on  needless  divisions  and  competitions, 
have  attained  to  the  high  grace  of  saying  that  sectarian 
interests  must  and  shall  be  sacrificed  when  the  paramount 
interests  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  require  it.^  When  this 
attainment  is  reached  by  other  souls,  and  many  other,  the 
conspicuous  shame  and  scandal  of  American  Christianity 
will  begin  to  be  abated. 

Meanwhile  the  signs  of  a  craving  for  larger  fellowship 
continue  to  be  multiplied.  Quite  independently  of  prac- 
tical results  achieved,  the  mere  fact  of  efforts  and  experi- 
ments is  a  hopeful  fact,  even  when   these  are  made  in 

1  James  i.  27:  "  Pure  and  unpolluted  worship,  in  the  eye  of  God,  consists 
in  visiting  widows  and  orphans  in  their  tribulation,  and  keeping  one's  self 
spotless  from  the  world." 

2  An  agreement  has  been  made,  in  this  State,  among  five  leading  denomi- 
nations, to  avoid  competing  enterprises  in  sparsely  settled  communities.  An 
interdenominational  committee  sees  to  the  carrying  out  of  this  policy.  At  a 
recent  mutual  conference  unanimous  satisfaction  was  expressed  in  the  six 
years'  operation  of  the  plan. 


VNIOX  OX  SECTARIAX  BASIS.  411 

directions  in  which  the  past  experience  of  the  church  has 
written  up  "  No  Thoroughfare." 

I.  No  one  need  question  the  sincerity  or  the  fraternal 
spirit  with  which  some  important  denominations  have  each 
proposed  the  reuniting  of  Christians  on  the  simple  condition 
that  all  others  should  accept  the  distinctive  tenet  for  which 
each  of  these  denominations  has  contended  against  other?. 
The  present  pope,  holding  the  personal  respect  and  confi- 
dence of  the  Christian  world  to  a  higher  degree  than  an)' 
one  of  his  predecessors  since  the  Reformation  (to  name 
no  earlier  date),  has  earnestly  besought  the  return  of  all 
believers  to  a  common  fellowship  by  their  acceptance  of 
the  authority  and  supremacy  of  the  Roman  see.  With 
equal  cordiality  the  bishops  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  have  signified  their  longing  for  restored  fellowship 
with  their  brethren  on  the  acceptance  by  these  of  prelatical 
episcopacy.  And  the  Baptists,  whose  constant  readiness 
at  fraternization  in  everything  else  is  emphasized  by  their 
conscientious  refraining  from  the  sacramental  sign  of  com- 
munion, are  not  less  earnest  in  their  desire  for  the  unifica- 
tion of  Christendom  by  the  general  acceptance  of  that 
tenet  concerning  baptism,  the  widespread  rejection  of 
which  debars  them,  reluctant,  from  unrestricted  fellowship 
with  the  general  company  of  faithful  men.  But  while  we 
welcome  every  such  manifestation  of  a  longing  for  union 
among  Christians,  and  honor  the  aspiration  that  it  might 
be  brought  about  in  one  or  another  of  these  ways,  in  fore- 
casting the  probabilities  of  the  case,  we  recognize  the  ex- 
treme unlikeliness  that  the  very  formulas  which  for  ages 
have  been  the  occasions  of  mutual  contention  and  separa- 
tion shall  become  the  basis  of  general  agreement  and 
lasting  concord. 

II.  Another  indication  of  the  craving  for  a  larger  fel- 
lowship is  found  in  the  efforts  made  for  large  sectarian 


412  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxil. 

councils,  representing  closely  kindred  denominations  in 
more  than  one  country.  The  imposing  ubiquity  of  the 
Roman  Church,  so  impressively  sustaining  its  claim  to 
the  title  Catholic,  may  have  had  some  influence  to  pro- 
voke other  denominations  to  show  what  could  be  done  in 
emulation  of  this  sort  of  greatness.  It  were  wiser  not  to 
invite  comparison  at  this  point.  No  other  Christian  organ- 
ization, or  close  fellowship  of  organizations,  can  approach 
that  which  has  its  seat  at  Rome,  in  the  world-wideness  of 
its  presence,  or  demand  with  so  bold  a  challenge, 

Quae  regio  in  terris  non  nostri  plena  laboris? 

The  representative  assembly  of  any  other  body  of  Chris- 
tians, however  widely  ramified,  must  seem  insignificant 
when  contrasted  with  the  real  ecumenicity  of  the  Vatican 
Council.  But  it  has  not  been  useless  for  the  larger  sects 
of  Protestantism  to  arrange  their  international  assemblies, 
if  it  were  for  nothing  more  than  this,  that  such  widening 
of  the  circle  of  practical  fellowship  may  have  the  effect 
to  disclose  to  each  sect  a  larger  Christendom  outside  to 
which  their  fellowship  must  sooner  or  later  be  made  to 
reach. 

The  first  of  these  international  sectarian  councils  was 
that  commonly  spoken  of  as  "  the  Pan-Anglican  Synod," 
of  Protestant  Episcopal  bishops  gathered  at  Lambeth  by 
invitation  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  1867  and 
thrice  since.  The  example  was  bettered  by  the  Presby- 
terians, who  in  1876  organized  for  permanence  their  "  Pam- 
Presbyterian  Alliance,"  or  "  Alliance  of  the  Reformed 
Churches  throughout  the  world  holding  the  Presbyterian 
System."  The  first  of  the  triennial  general  councils  of 
this  Alliance  was  held  at  Edinburgh  in  1877,  "represent- 
ing   more    than    forty-nine    separate    churches    scattered 


ECUMENICAL   SECTS.  413 

through  twenty-five  different  countries,  and  consisting  of 
more  than  twenty  thousand  congregations."  ^  The  second 
council  was  held  at  Philadelphia,  and  the  third  at  Belfast. 
The  idea  was  promptly  seized  by  the  Methodists.  At  the 
instance  of  the  General  Conference  of  the  United  States, 
a  Pam-Methodist  Council  was  held  in  London  in  1881, — 
"  the  first  Ecumenical  Methodist  Conference," — consist- 
ing of  four  hundred  delegates,  representing  twenty-eight 
branches  of  Methodism,  ten  in  the  eastern  hemisphere  and 
eighteen  in  the  western,  including  six  millions  of  commu- 
nicants and  about  twenty  millions  of  people.^  Ten  years 
later,  in  1891,  a  second  "Methodist  Ecumenical  Confer- 
ence "  was  held  at  Washington. 

Interesting  and  useful  as  this  international  organization 
of  sects  is  capable  of  being  made,  it  would  be  a  mistake 
to  look  upon  it  as  marking  a  stage  in  the  progress  toward 
a  manifest  general  unity  of  the  church.  Th£_teiideiicy  of 
it  is,  on  the  whole,  in  the  opposite  direction. 

III.  If  the  organization  of  "  ecumenical  "  sects  has  little 
tendency  toward  the  visible  communion  of  saints  in  the 
American  church,  not  much  more  is  to  be  hoped  from 
measures  for  the  partial  consolidation  of  sects,  such  as  are 
often  projected  and  sometimes  realized.  The  healing  of 
the  great  thirty  years'  schism  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
in  1869,  was  so  vast  a  gain  in  ecclesiastical  economy,  and 
in  the  abatement  of  a  long-reeking  public  scandal  and  of 
a  multitude  of  local  frictions  and  irritations,  that  none  need 
wonder  at  the  awakening  of  ardent  desires  that  the  ten 
Presbyterian  bodies  still  surviving  might  "  find  room  for 
all  within  one  fold  "  ^  in  a  national  or  continental  Presby- 

1  "  Schaff-Herzog  Encyclopedia,"  vol.  i.,  p.  63. 

2  Buckley,  "  The  Methodists,"  p.  552. 

s  Thompson,  "The  Presbyterians,"  p.  308. 


414  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxii. 

terian  Church.  The  seventeen  Methodist  bodies,  separated 
by  no  differences  of  polity  or  of  doctrine  that  seem  impor- 
tant to  anybody  but  themselves,  if  consolidated  into  one, 
would  constitute  a  truly  imposing  body,  numbering  nearly 
five  millions  of  communicants  and  more  than  fifteen  mil- 
lions of  people ;  and  if  this  should  absorb  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  (an  event  the  possibility  of  which  hris 
often  been  contemplated  with  complacency),  with  its  half- 
million  of  communicants  and  its  elements  of  influence  far 
beyond  the  proportion  of  its  numbers,  the  result  would 
be  an  approximation  to  some  good  men's  ideal  of  a  na- 
tional church,  with  its  army  of  ministers  coordinated  by  a 
college  of  bishops,  and  its  plebs  adunata  sacerdoti.  Con- 
sultations are  even  now  in  progress  looking  toward  the 
closer  fellowship  of  the  Congregationalists  and  the  Disci- 
ples. The  easy  and  elastic  terms  of  internal  association  in 
each  of  these  denominations  make  it  the  less  difficult  to 
adjust  terms  of  mutual  cooperation  and  union.  Suppose 
that  the  various  Baptist  organizations  were  to  discover 
that  under  their  like  congregational  government  there 
were  ways  in  which,  without  compromising  or  weakening 
in  the  slightest  their  protest  against  practices  which  they 
reprobate  in  the  matter  of  baptism,  they  could,  for  certain 
defined  purposes,  enter  into  the  .same  combination,  the  re- 
sult would  be  a  body  of  nearly  five  millions  of  communi- 
cants, not  the  less  strong  for  being  lightly  harnessed  and 
for  comprehending  wide  diversities  of  opinion  and  tem- 
perament. In  all  this  we  have  supposed  to  be  realized 
nothing  more  than  friends  of  Christian  union  have  at  one 
time  or  another  urged  as  practicable  and  desirable.  By 
these  few  and,  it  would  seem,  not  incongruous  combina- 
tions there  would  be  four  powerful  ecclesiastical  corpora- 
tions,— one  Catholic  and  three  Protestant, — which,  out  of 
the  twenty  millions  of  church  communicants  in  the  United 


C0X.S0l.//).l/70\    OF  SF.CTS.  41" 

States,  would  include  more  than  seventeen  and  one  half 
millions.! 

The  pondering  of  these  possibilities  is  pertinent  to 
this  closing  chapter  on  account  of  the  fact  that,  as  we 
near  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  one  of  the  most 
distinctl^L-visiblfi-leiideucies,  is.-±he.tenderLcy  toward  the 
abatement  of  ^sectarian  division  in  the  church.  It  is  not 
for  us  simply  to  note  the  converging  lines  of  tendency, 
without  some  attempt  to  compute  the  point  toward  which 
they  converge.  There  is  grave  reason  to  doubt  whether 
this  line  of  the  consolidation  or  confederation  of  sects,  fol- 
lowed never  so  far,  would  reach  the  desired  result. 

If  the  one  hundred  and  forty-three  sects  enumerated  in 
the  eleventh  census  of  the  United  States  ^  should  by  suc- 
cessful negotiation  be  reduced  to  four,  distinguished  each 
from  the  others  by  strongly  marked  diversities  of  organi- 
zation and  of  theological  statement,  and  united  to  each 
other  only  by  community  of  the  one  faith  in  Jesus  Christ, 
doubtless  it  would  invoh-e  some  important  gains.  It 
would  make  it  possible  to  be  rid  of  the  friction  and  some- 
times the  clash  of  much  useless  and  expensive  machinery, 
and  to  extinguish  many  local  schisms  that  had  been  en- 
gendered by  the  zeal  of  ^ome  central  sectarian  propaganda. 
Would  it  tend  to  mitigate  the  intensity  of  sectarian  com- 
petition, or  would  it  tend  rather  to  aggravate  it?  Is  one's 
pride  in  his  sect,  his  zeal  for  the  propagation  of  it,  his 
jealousy  of  any  influence  that  tends  to  impair  its  greatness 
or  hinder  its  progress,  likely  to  be  reduced,  or  is  it  rather 
likely  to  be  exalted,  by  the  consciousness  that  the  sect  is 
a  very  great  sect,  standing  alone  for  important  principles? 

1  If  the  Lutherans  of  America  were  to  be  united  with  the  Presbyterians, 
it  would  be  no  more  than  was  accomplished  fourscore  years  ago  in  Prussia. 
In  that  case,  out  of  20,618,307  communicants,  there  would  be  included  in 
the  four  combinations,  18,768,859. 

2  Dr.  Carroll,  "  Religious  Forces,"  p.  xv. 


r 


416  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxii. 

Whatever  there  is  at  present  of  asperity  in  the  emulous 
labors  of  the  competing  denominations,  would  it  not  be 
manifold  exasperated  if  the  competition  were  restricted  to 
four  great  corporations  or  confederations?  If  the  intestine 
conflict  of  the  church  of  Christ  in  America  should  even 
be  narrowed  down  (as  many  have  devoutly  wished)  to  two 
contestants, — the  Catholic  Church  with  its  diversity  of 
orders  and  rites,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Protestantism  with 
its  various  denominations  solidly  confederated,  on  the 
other, — should  we  be  nearer  to  the  longed-for  achieve- 
ment of  Christian  union  ?  or  should  we  find  sectarian  ani- 
mosities thereby  raised  to  the  highest  power,  and  the 
church,  discovering  that  it  was  on  the  wrong  track  for  the 
desired  terminus,  compelled  to  reverse  and  back  in  order 
to  be  switched  upon  the  right  one? 
*—  Questions  like  these,  put  to  be  considered,  not  to  be 
answered,  raise  in  the  mind  the  misgiving  that  we  have 
been  seeking  in  diplomatic  negotiations  between  high  con- 
tracting parties  that  which  diplomacy  can  do  only  a  little 
toward  accomplishing.  The  great  aim  is  to  be  sought  in 
humbler  ways.  It  is  more  hopeful  to  begin  at  the  lower 
end.  Not  in  great  towns  and  centers  of  ecclesiastical  in- 
fluence, but  in  villages  and  country  districts,  the  deadly 
effects  of  comminuted  fracture  in  the  church  are  most 
deeply  felt.  It  is  directly  to  the  people  of  such  commu- 
nities, not  through  the  medium  of  persons  or  committees 
that  represent  national  sectarian  interests,  that  the  new 
commandment  is  to  be  preached,  which  yet  is  no  new 
commandment,  but  the  old  commandment  which  they  have 
had  from  the  beginning.  It  cannot  always  be  that  sincere 
Christian  believers,  living  together  in  a  neighborhood  in 
which  the  ruinous  effects  of  division  are  plain  to  every  eye, 
shall  continue  to  misapprehend  or  disregard  some  of  the 
tenderest  and  most  unmistakable  counsels  of  their  Lord  and 


THE  HOPE   OF   UNITY.  417 

his  apostles,  or  imagine  the  authority  of  them  to  be  can- 
celed by  the  authority  of  any  sect  or  party  of  Christians. 
The  double  fallacy,  first,  that  it  is  a  Christian's  prime  duty 
to  look  out  for  his  own  soul,  and,  secondly,  that  the  soul's 
best  health  is  to  be  secured  by  sequestering  it  from  contact 
with  dissentient  opinions,  and  indulging  its  tastes  and 
preferences  wherein  they  differ  from  those  of  its  neighbor, 
must  sometime  be  found  out  and  exposed.  The  discov- 
ery will  be  made  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  most  cherished 
sermons  and  sacraments  and  prayers  that  is  comparable  in 
value,  as  a  means  of  grace,  with  the  giving  up  of  all  these 
for  God's  reign  and  righteousness — that  he  who  will  save 
his  soul  shall  lose  it,  and  he  who  will  lose  his  soul  for 
Christ  and  his  gospel  shall  save  it  to  life  eternal.  These 
centuries  of  church  history,  beginning  with  convulsive 
disruptions  of  the  church  in  Europe,  with  persecutions  and 
religious  wars,  present  before  us  the  importation  into  the 
New  World  of  the  religious  divisions  and  subdivisions  of 
the  Old,  and  the  further  division  of  these  beyond  any 
precedent  in  history.  It  begins  to  look  as  if  in  this 
"  strange  work  "  God  had  been  grinding  up  material  for  a 
nobler  manifestation  of  the  unity  of  his  people.  The 
sky  of  the  declining  century  is  red  with  promise.  Hitherto, 
not  the  decay  of  religious  earnestness  only,  but  the  re- 
vival of  it,  has  brought  into  the  church,  not  peace,  but 
division.  When  next  some  divine  breathing  of  spiritual 
influence  shall  be  wafted  over  the  land,  can  any  man 
forbid  the  hope  that  from  village  to  village  the  members 
of  the  disintegrated  and  enfeebled  church  of  Christ  may 
be  gathered  together  "  with  one  accord  in  one  place  " 
not  for  the  transient  fervors  of  the  revival  only,  but  for 
permanent  fellowship  in  work  and  worship?  A  few  ex- 
amples of  this  would  spread  their  influence  through  the 
American  church  "  until  the  whole  was  leavened." 


% 


41 8  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chav.  xxii. 

The  record  of  important  events  in  the  annals  of  Ameri- 
can Christianity  may  well  end  with  that  wholly  unpre- 
cedented gathering  at  Chicago  in  connection  with  the 
magnificent  celebration  of  the  four  hundredth  anniversary 
of  the  discovery  of  America  by  Columbus — I  mean,  of 
course,  the  Parliament  of  Religions.  In  a  land  which  bears 
among  the  nations  the  reproach  of  being  wholly  absorbed 
in  devotion  to  material  interests,  and  in  which  the  church, 
unsupported  and  barely  recognized  by  the  state,  and  un- 
regulated by  any  secular  authority,  scatters  itself  into  what 
seem  to  be  hopelessly  discordant  fragments,  a  bold  enter- 
prise was  undertaken  in  the  name  of  American  Christianity, 
such  as  the  church  in  no  other  land  of  Christendom  would 
have  had  the  power  or  the  courage  to  venture  on.  With 
large  hospitality,  representatives  of  all  the  religions  of  the 
world  were  invited  to  visit  Chicago,  free  of  cost,  as  guests 
of  the  Parliament.  For  seventeen  days  the  Christianity  of 
America,  and  of  Christendom,  and  of  Christian  missions  in 
heathen  lands,  sat  confronted — no,  not  confronted,  but 
side  by  side  on  the  same  platform — with  the  non-Chris- 
tian religions  represented  by  their  priests,  prelates,  ar.d 
teachers.  Of  all  the  diversities  of  Christian  opinion  and 
organization  in  America  nothing  important  was  unrepre- 
sented, from  the  authoritative  dogmatic  system  and  tlie 
solid  organization  of  the  Catholic  Church  (present  in  the 
person  of  its  highest  official  dignitaries)  to  the  broadest 
liberalism  and  the  most  unrestrained  individualism.  There 
were  those  who  stood  aloof  and  prophesied  that  nothing 
could  come  of  such  an  assemblage  but  a  hopeless  jangle  of 
discordant  opinions.  The  forebodings  were  disappointed. 
The  diverse  opinions  were  there,  and  were  uttered  with 
entire  unreserve.  But  the  jangle  of  discord  was  not  there. 
It  was  seen  and  felt  that  the  American  church,  in  the 
presence  of  the  unchristian  and  antichristian  powers,  and 


THE  HOPE    OF   UNITY. 


4IQ 


in  presence  of  those  solemn  questions  of  the  needs  of  hu- 
manity that  overtask  the  ingenuity  and  the  resources  of 
us  all  combined,  was  "  builded  as  a  city  that  is  at  unity 
with  itself."  That  body  which,  by  its  strength  of  organi- 
zation, and  by  the  binding  force  of  its  antecedents,  might 
have  seemed  to  some  most  hopelessly  isolated  from  the 
common  sympathies  of  the  assembly,  like  all  the  rest  was 
faithful  in  the  assertion  of  its  claims,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  surpassed  by  none  in  the  manifestation  of  fra- 
ternal respect  toward  fellow- Christians  of  other  folds. 
Since  those  seventeen  wonderful  September  days  of  1893, 
the  idea  that  has  so  long  prevailed  with  multitudes  of 
minds,  that  the  only  Christian  union  to  be  hoped  for  in 
America  must  be  a  union  to  the  exclusion  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  and  in  antagonism  to  it,  ought  to  be 
reckoned  an  idea  obsolete  and  antiquated. 

The  theme  prescribed  for  this  volume  gives  no  oppor-  \ 
tunity  for  such  a  conclusion  as  the  literary  artist  delights 
in — a  climax  of  achievement  and  consummation,  or  the 
catastrophe  of  a  decline  and  fall.  We  have  marked  the 
sudden  divulging  to  the  world  of  the  long-kept  secret  of 
divine  Providence;  the  unveiling  of  the  hidden  continent; 
the  progress  of  discovery,  of  conquest,  of  colonization ; 
the  planting  of  the  church ;  the  rush  of  immigration ;  the 
occupation  of  the  continent  with  Christian  institutions  by 
a  strange  diversity  of  sects ;  the  great  providential  prepa- 
rations as  for  some  "  divine  event "  still  hidden  behind  the 
curtain  that  is  about  to  rise  on  the  new  century, — and 
here  the  story  breaks  off  half  told. 

To  so  many  of  his  readers  as  shall  have  followed  him  to 
this  last  page  of  the  volume,  the  author  would  speak  a 
parting  word.     He  does  not  deprecate  the  criticisms  that 


I 


420  AMERICAN  CHRISTIANITY.  [Chap.  xxii. 

will  certainly  be  pronounced  upon  his  work  by  those  com- 
petent to  judge  both  of  the  subject  and  of  the  style  of  it. 
He  would  rather  acknowledge  them  in  advance.  No  one 
of  his  critics  can  possibly  have  so  keen  a  sense  as  the  au- 
thor himself  of  his  incompetency,  and  of  the  inadequacy 
of  his  work,  to  the  greatness  of  the  subject.  To  one  re- 
proach, however,  he  cannot  acknowledge  himself  justly 
liable :  he  is  not  self-appointed  to  a  task  beyond  his  powers 
and  attainments,  but  has  undertaken  it  at  the  instance  of 
eminent  men  to  whose  judgment  he  was  bound  to  defer. 
But  he  cannot  believe  that  even  his  shortcomings  and 
failures  will  be  wholly  fruitless.  If  they  shall  provoke 
some  really  competent  scholar  to  make  a  book  worthy  of 
so  great  and  inspiring  a  theme,  the  present  author  will  be 
well  content. 


INDEX. 


Abbot,  Ezra,  379. 

Abbot,  George,  Archbishop,  42. 

Abbott,  Lyman,  384. 

Abolitionists,  82,  282,  284. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  131. 

Adventists,  336. 

Albany,  69. 

Albrights,  229, 

Alexander,  Dr.  Gross,  348. 

Alexander  VI.,  pope,  3,  17. 

Allen,  Professor  A.  V.  G.,  156,  159, 
382. 

Allen,  Professor  J.  H.,  250. 

Alliance,  Evangelical,  408. 

America :  providential  concealment 
of,  I ;  medieval  church  in,  2 ; 
Spanish  conquests  and  missions 
in,  6-15;  French  occupation  and 
missions,  16-29;  English  colo- 
nies in,  38-67,  82-126;  Dutch 
and  Swedes  in,  68-81 ;  churches 
of  New  England,  88 ;  Quaker  colo- 
nization, 109-I17;  other  colonists, 
120-124;  diverse  sects,  127-139; 
Great  Awakening,  157-180;  Pres- 
byterians, 186;  Reformed,  187; 
Lutheran,  188;  Moravian,  189; 
Methodist,  198;  severance  of  colo- 
nies from  England  and  of  church 
from  state,  221;  Second  Awaken- 
ing, 233 ;  organized  beneficence, 
246;  conflicts  of  the  church,  261  ; 
dissension  and  schism,  292 ;  im-  ; 
migration,  315;  the  church  in  the 
Civil  War,  340 ;  reconstruction  and  I 
42 


expansion  of  the  church,  351 ;  the- 
ology and  literature,  374;  political 
union  and  ecclesiastical  division, 
398;  tendencies  toward  unity,  405. 

American  Bible  Society,  256,  408. 

American  Board  of   Missions,    252- 

^55; 
American     Missionary     Association, 

255.  314. 
Andover  Theological  Seminary,  251, 

271. 
Andrew,  Bishop,  302. 
Andrews,  E.  B.,  340. 
Andrews,  W.  G.,  177,  179. 
Anglican  Church  established  in  Ameri- 

can  colonies,  51,  61,  64,  65. 
Antipopery  agitation,  312,  325. 
Antislavery.    See  Slavery. 
"Apostasy,  the  southern,"  277,  346. 
"Applied  Christianity,"  385. 
Apprenticeship  obsolete,  364. 
Arminianism,  104,  222. 
Armstrong,  General  S.  C,  356. 
Asbury,  Bishop  Francis,  200. 
Awakening,  the  Great,   53,   81,  126. 

141,  157,  181. 
Awakening,  the  Second,,  233,  242. 
Bachman,  John,  278. 
Bacon,  B.  W.,  380. 
Bacon,  David,  246. 
Bacon,  Francis,  40. 
Bacon,   Leonard,   84,    94,    I02,    1 13, 

134,  227,   260,  272,  278,  287,  408. 
Bacon,  Nathaniel,  63. 
Baird,  Charles  W.  and  Henry  M.,  388. 


422 


INDEX. 


Baltimore,    first    Lord,    54;    second 
Lord,  56. 

Bancroft,  George,  19,  21,  22,  24,  27, 
29,  41,  116,  117,  383. 

Baptist  Young  People's  Union,  369. 

Baptists  :  in  Virginia,  53  ;  in  Carolina, 
64;  in  Rhode  Island,  106;  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, 130;  in  Pennsylvania, 
146;  in  the  South,  149;  services  to 
religious  liberty,  221  ;  antislavery,  j 
222 ;  become  Calvinists,  iit,  ;  found  | 
Brown  University,  248;  undertake 
foreign  missions,  253;  divide  on 
slavery,  303  ;  pioneer  work,  332  ; 
plan  of  Christian  union,  411. 

Barclay,  Robert,  112,  117. 

Barnes,  Albert,  294. 

Baxter,  George  A.,  237. 

Baxter,  Richard,  66,  121. 

Beecher,  Edward,  294,  383. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  341,  351,  384. 

Beecher,  Lyman,  230,  243,  251,  263, 
286,  294,  383. 

Belcher,  Governor,  168. 

Bellamy,  Joseph,  156,  181. 

Bellomont,  Lord,  79. 

Bellows,  Henry  W.,  383. 

Benezet,  Anthony,  203. 

Bennett,  Philip,  48. 

Bennett,  Richard,  50. 

Berkeley,  Governor  Sir  William,  49, 
50.  51.  63. 

Bethlehem,  Pa.,  189. 

Biblical  science,  378. 

Birney,  James  G.,  273,  274,  275,  283. 

Bishops,  Anglican,  consecrated,  213, 

304. 
Bishops,  Catholic,  consecrated,  215. 
Bishops,  colonial,  not  wanted,  206. 
Bishops,  Methodist,  consecrated,  219. 
Bishops,  Moravian,  124,  193. 
Bissell,  Edwin  C,  380. 
Blair,  Commissary,  52, 
Blair,  Samuel,  160,  167. 
Blake,  Joseph,  63. 
Boehm,  Martin,  228. 
Bogardus,  Everard,  70. 
Boyle,  Robert,  66. 
Bradford,  Governor  William,  94,  97. 
Brainerd,  David,  180,  183,  247. 
Bray,  Thomas,  61,  62,  66. 
Breckinridge,  Robert  J.,  281,  378. 


Brewster,  Edw^ard,  43,  44. 

Brewster,  William,  44,  Zj,. 

Briggs,  Charles  A.,  380. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  384. 

Bro^^n,  P"rancis,  379. 

Brown,  Tutor,  131. 

Browne,  J.  and  S.,  at  Salem,  97. 

Browne,  W.  H.,  55,  59. 

Bryce,  James,  404,  405. 

Buck,  Richard,  42,  44. 

Buckley,  James  M.,  201,  202,  218, 
219,  240,  241. 

Buckminster,  251,  383. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  105,  176,  375,  383, 
409. 

Cahenslyism,  392. 

Calvert,  Cecilius,  56. 

Calvert,  George,  54,  55, 

Calvert,  Leonard  and  George,  56,  59. 

Calvinism:  in  New  England,  103, 
225 ;  among  Baptists,  223 ;  in  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  294. 

Campanius,  John,  76,  150. 

Campbell,  Douglas,  74. 

Campbellites,  242. 

Camp-meetings,  233. 

Canada,  18-29. 

Cane  Ridge  revival,  235. 

Carolinas  colonized,  62. 

Carroll,  Bishop  John,  214. 

Carroll,  Dr.  H.  K.,  335,  369. 

Cartier,  Jacques,  17. 

Cartwright,  Peter,   232. 

Catholic  Church,  Roman :  Revived 
and  reformed  in  sixteenth  century, 
4.  Spanish  missions  a  failure,  10- 
15.  French  missions,  their  wide 
extension  and  final  collapse,  17-29. 
Persecuted  in  England,  36.  In 
Maryland,  56.  Way  prepared  for, 
185.    Organized  for  United  States, 

215.  Conflict  with  "  trusteeism," 

216,  310;  with  fanaticism,  312. 
Gain  and  loss  by  immigration,  318- 
322.  Modified  in  America,  323- 
396.  Methods  of  propagation,  330. 
Its  literature,  394.  Its  relation  to 
the  Church  Catholic,  324,  416,  418. 

Cavaliers  in  Virginia,  51. 
Champlain,  17,  20,  28. 
Channing,  William  EUery,  251,  301, 
383- 


INDEX. 


Charity  Organization,  409. 

Charles  II.  of  England,  51,  62,  78. 

Charter  :  of  Massachusetts,  90;  trans- 
ferred to  America,  98. 

Charter  of  the  Virginia  Company  :  re- 
voked, 48. 

Chauncy,  Charles,  170. 

Chautauqua,  233,  363. 

Cherokee  nation,  265. 

Chickasaws  and  Choctaws,  23. 

Chinese  immigration,  336. 

Church  polity  in  New  England,  88, 
95,  99,  102. 

Clark,  Francis  E.,  368. 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  ^?>t,. 

Clergy:  of  Virginia,  52;  of  Mary- 
land, 61. 

Cleveland,  Aaron,  204. 

College  settlement,  370. 

Colleges,  48,  52,  102,  160,  172,  173, 
176,  231,  247,  271. 

Colonization  in  Africa,  257. 

Congregationalists  :  in  New  England, 
99 ;  in  New  Jersey,  109 ;  moving 
west,  137;  cooperate  with  Presby- 
terians, 220 ;  college-builders,  t,t^^  ; 
work  at  the  South,  355. 

Conservatism  of  American  churches, 

311- 
Copland,  Patrick,  47,  48,  50. 
Cornbury,  Lord,  80,  121,  135,  141. 
Corwin,  E.  T.,  69,   71,  78,  80,  121, 

139- 
Covenanters  in  New  Jersey,  no. 
Cumberland  Presbyterians,  241. 
Cutler,  Timothy,  131,  156,  169. 
Dabney,  Robert  L.,  378. 
Dale,  Sir  Thomas,  43,  45. 
Davenport,  James,  170. 
Davenport,  John,  49,  I02. 
Davies,  Samuel,  173. 
Deerfield,  21. 
De  la  Warr,  Lord,  41,  43. 
Dewey,  Orville,  383. 
Dickinson,  Jonathan,  160,  294. 
Disciples,  242,  414. 
Divisions  of  Christendom,  31. 
Dominicans,  9,  10,  32. 
Dorchester,    Daniel,    322,   335,    3';7, 

358,  359.  361-  " 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  341, 
Dow,  Lorenzo,  240.  j 


Drunkenness  prevalent,  286. 

Dubbs,  Joseph  H.,  121. 

Dudley,  Governor,  98. 

Dueling,  263. 

Duffield,  George,  294. 

Dunster,  President,  130. 

Durand,  William,  49. 

Durbin,  David  P.,  240. 

Dutch  church,  68,  78,  109,  134. 

Dutch  in  Carolina,  64. 

"Dutch,  Pennsylvania,"  118. 

Dwight,  Timothy,  230,  242,  375,  36 

Eaton,  Theophilus,  102. 

Eddy,  Richard,  225,  228. 

Edmundson,  William,  64. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  156,  169,  i) 
179,  247,  294. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  the  younger,  2J 
225,  273. 

Elder,  M.  T.,  322,331. 

Eleuthera  colony,  50. 

Eliot,  John,  66,  102,  150,  152. 

Embury,  Philip,  199. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  298,  383. 

Emmons,  Nathanael,  251,  305,  375 

Endicott,  John,  90,  93,  94. 

England,  religious  parties  in,  2Z,  4 

Episcopal  Church  :  in  Virginia,  38-5 
in  ^laryland,  60;  in  Carolina,  6 
67,  148  ;  in  New  York,  78-80,  13 
in  Pennsylvania,  119;  in  Georg 
124;  in  New  England,  128,  12 
131-134;  hostile  to  revivals,  l^ 
306;  extreme  depression,  210;  cc 
secration  of  bishops,  212;  resus 
tation,  304 ;  violent  controver.' 
306  ;  rapid  growth,  308 ;  specialt 
of,  in  evangelization,  334;  recc 
struction  after  Civil  War,  352  ;  Pr 
4nglican  Synod,  412. 

Epworth  League,  369. 

Establishment  of  religion :  in  V 
ginia,  45,  51-53;  in  Maryland,  6 
in  the  Carolinas,  64,  65,  148 ; 
New  York,  78-80;  in  New  Er 
land,  91,  97,  100,  102,  128,  li 
Disestablishment,  174,  221. 

Evangelical  Association,  229. 

Evangelization  at  the  South,  356. 

Evangelization  at  the  West,  327. 

Evarts,  Jeremiah,  267,  271,  286. 

Exscinding  Acts,  167,  297,  353. 


424 


INDEX. 


Fanaticism  of  Spanish  church,  4,  8. 
Fanaticism,  antipopery,  60,  61,  312. 
Finney,  Charles  G.,  375. 
Fisher,  George  Park,  182,  382. 
Fisher,  Sidney  George,  118,  120,  143- 

145- 

Fitch,  John,  150. 

Fletcher,  Governor,  79,  80. 

Florida,  9,  10,  22. 

Foster,  R.  V.,  236,  238. 

Fox,  George,  34,  65,  114,  117,  149. 

Franciscans,  10,  11,  12,32. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  118. 

Fraser,  John,  335. 

Frelinghuysen,  Domine,  81,  134,  141, 
142,  163. 

Frelinghuysen,  Senator,  267. 

French  missions:  projected,  17;  ex- 
tinguished, 185,  220. 

Fuller,  Dr.  and  Deacon,  94. 

Gates,  Sir  Thomas,  42. 

Georgia,  122,  205,  264,  285. 

German  exiles,  53,  139. 

German  immigration,  117,  120,  187, 
318. 

Gladden,  Washington,  385. 

Gosnold,  Bartholomew,  38. 

Gough,  John  B.,  289. 

Great  fortunes  and  great  gifts,  359. 

Greatorex's  collection,  393. 

Green,  Ashbel,  204. 

Green,  S.  S.,  122. 

Green,  W.  H.,  380. 

Gregory,  Caspar  Ren6,  379. 

Griffin,  Edward  Dorr,  251,  383. 

Griswold,  Alexander  V.,  304. 

Gurley,  R.  R.,  273. 

Plale,  Edward  Everett,  367,  386. 

Half-way  Covenant,  104. 

Hall,  Isaac  H.,  379. 

Hamilton,  J.  Taylor,  190,  198. 

Hampton  Institute,  356. 

Hand,  Daniel,  360. 

Hard  times  in  1857,  342. 

Harrison,  Thomas,  49,  50,  60. 

Hart,  Levi,  204. 

Hastings,  Thomas,  387,  392. 

Haupt,  Bible-work,  380. 

Haverhill,  Mass.,  21. 

Hawkins,  John,  289. 

Helps,  Arthur,  7,  8. 

Higginson,  Francis,  90. 


High-church  party:  in  Episcopal 
Church,  306,  308,  323,  407;  in 
Presbyterian  Church,  295,  407. 

Hill,  Matthew,  121. 

Hilprecht,  Dr.,  379. 

Historical  theology,  381. 

Hitchcock,  Roswell  D.,  382. 

Hobart,  John  Henry,  304,  407. 

Hodge,  Charles,  378,  381. 

Holland :  colony  from,  in  New  York, 
68  ;  not  the  source  of  New  England 
institutions,  74;  Pilgrims  in,  86; 
mission  from,  to  Germans,  194. 

Hooker,  Thomas,  102,  138. 

Hopkins,  Samuel,  151,  181,  183,  184, 
204,  205. 

Hopkins,  Stephen,  44. 

Hopkinsianism,  294. 

Hudson,  Henry,  68. 

Hughes,  John,  310,  351. 

Huguenots,  37,  53,  62,  64,  65,  81, 
139- 

Humphrey,  Heman,  286. 

Hunt,  Robert,  38,  41. 

Huntington,  Frederic  D.,  384. 

Hurst,  John  F.,  382. 

Hutchinson,  Ann,  loi,  106. 

Hymn-writers,  387. 

Indians :    evangelization   of,   46,    47, 

57,  71.  74-  76.  150.  151.  179.  246; 
Indian  churches,  131. 

Induction  refused  to  unworthy  par- 
sons, 51. 

Immigration,  315,  317,  357. 

Infidelity,  219,  230. 

Institutional  Church,  369. 

Intemperance,  75,  205,  285. 

International  sectarian  councils,  412. 

Ireland,  318. 

Iroquois,  20,  23,  25. 

Jackson,  Helen  Hunt,  264. 

Jacobs,  Henry  E.,  71,  121,  188,  190, 
196,  198. 

James  I.  of  England,  36,  38,  44,  47, 
48,  90. 

James  II.  of  England,  no,  112. 

Jamestown,  30-45. 

Jarratt,  Devereux,  173. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  221,  230,  305. 

Jerks,  the,  239,  240. 

Jesuits,  4,  10,  26,  28,  29,  32,  56,  57, 

58,  71,  150,  214. 


INDEX. 


425 


jogues,  Father,  7 1,  150. 

Johnson,  President  Samuel,  132. 

Johnson,  Thomas  Cary,  297,  314, 
note,  354. 

Journalism,  ZZZ>  344- 

Judson,  Adoniram,  253. 

Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  284,  341. 

Kansas  Crusade,  341. 

Keith,  George,  119,  133,  149. 

Keith,  Governor,  120. 

Kieft,  Governor,  70,  71. 

King,  Thomas  Starr,  383. 

King's  Chapel,  Boston,  224. 

Kirby,  William,  294. 

Kirk,  Edward  Norris,  383. 

Knapp,  Jacob,  288. 

Lanphier,  Jeremiah,  342. 

La  Salle,  18. 

Las  Casas,  9,  152. 

Laud,  William,  48. 

Lea,  Henry  Charles,  382. 

Leon,  Ponce  de,  9. 

Leyden,  45,  83,  86. 

Liberty,  religious  :  in  Eleuthera,  50 ; 
in  Maryland,  56,  59 ;  in  Carolina, 
63  ;  in  New  York,  72  ;  in  New  Jer- 
sey, III;  in  Pennsylvania,  116;  in 
Georgia,  123;  defended  by  Make- 
mie,  136;  favored  by  sectarian  di- 
vision, 174;  promoted  by  Baptists, 
221. 

Literature  of  American  church,  374- 

395- 
Littledale,  R.  F.,  26,  27,  28. 
Liturgies,  386,  394. 
Locke,  John,  62,  64. 
Lodge,  H.  C,  62,  70,  117,  153. 
Log  College,  142,  160,  162,  172. 
Logan  County,  Kentucky,  232,  234. 
Louisiana,  23,  27,  220. 
Lutherans,   72,   120,    146,    188,    190, 

232. 
Luther  League,  369. 
Madison,  James,  Bishop,  232. 
Madison,  James,  President,  402. 
Maine,  20,  21,  23,  410. 
Makemie,  Francis,  121,  136, 
Maria  Monk,  312. 
Marshall,  John,  232. 
Maryland,  49,  54-62. 
Mason,  John  M.,  263. 
Mason,  Lowell,  392. 


Massacres,  2,  10,  11,  12,  48,  71,  76, 
151,  194. 

Mather,  Cotton,  107,  153. 

Mayhews,  the,  150. 

McConnell,  S.  D.,  151,  170,  179, 
211,  224. 

McGee  brothers,  233. 

McGready,  James,  233. 

Mcllvaine,  C.  P.,  351. 

McMasters,  John  Bach,  240. 

Megapolensis,  Domine,  71,  77,  150. 

Menendez,  10. 

Mennonites,  72,  117,  153. 

Mercersburg  theology,  377,  388. 

Methodism:  tardy  arrival  in  Amer- 
ica, 198;  spreads  southward,  201; 
rapid  growth,  202 ;  against  slavery 
and  intemperance,  205 ;  receives 
bishops,  219;  divided  by  the  sla- 
very agitation,  301 ;  in  pioneer 
work,  332  ;  at  the  South,  353 ;  Ecu- 
menical Conference,  413;  consoli- 
dation of  Methodist  sects,  414. 

Michaelius,  Jonas,  69. 

Miilerism,  336. 

Mills,  Samuel  J.,  248,  256. 

Minuit,  Peter,  69,  70,  76. 

Missionary  societies,  62,  252,  253, 
255.  257,  258,  367. 

Missions,  American  :  to  Indians,  179, 
246,  265 ;  to  the  West,  220,  327 ; 
to  the  South,  355. 

Missions,  foreign,  252,  255,  257,  358. 

Missions  to  America  :  Icelandic,  2  ; 
Spanish,  6-16;  French,  17-29;  of 
the  S.  P.  G.,  62,  66,  67,  80,  126, 
131.  133,  135.  140,  177;  of  the 
church  of  Holland,  1^5. 

Missionary  Ridge,  268. 

Mississippi,  the,  18,  21,  256. 

Missouri  Compromise,  270,  271,  384. 

Mobs  :  antipopery,  321 ;  pro-slavery, 
283. 

Montesinos,  9. 

Montreal,  17,  20. 

Moody,  D wight  L.,  344,  388. 

Moor,  Thoroughgood,  135. 

Moore,  George  Foot,  380. 

Moravians  :  in  Georgia,  124 ;  in  Penn- 
sylvania, 189,  193  ;  missions  to  In- 
dians, 194;  their  liturgies,  394. 

Mormonism,  335. 


426 


INDEX. 


Morris,  Colonel,  79. 

Morris,  Samuel,  173. 

Morse,  Jedidiah,  251. 

Morton,  Thomas,  88. 

Miihienberg,  Henry  M.,  191-198. 

Mulford,  Elisha,  378. 

Munger,  Theodore  T.,  384. 

Murray,  John,  225. 

Music,  church,  391,  394. 

^lM|^|ond  church,  48,  49,  59. 

Nat^^^m  of  the  Puritans,  100,  loi, 

—^•^2,  137,  176. 

Native  American  party,  313,  321. 

Neill,  E.  D.,  44,  51,  59. 

Neshaminy,  142. 

Nevin,  John  W.,  377. 

Newark,  no,  160. 

New  Brunswick,  162. 

New  England  Company,  66. 

New  England  theology,  181,  374. 

New  Englanders   moving  west,   80, 

137- 
New  Haven  theology,  294,  298. 
New  Jersey,  109-I12. 
New  Jerusalem  Church,  229. 
New  Londonderry,  160. 
Newman,  A.  H.,  131,  255,  275. 
New  Mexico,  6,  11. 
New-School  Presbyterians,  294,  346, 

355- 
New-Side  Presbyterians,  166. 
New  York,  68-81 ;  diversity  of  sects, 

134- 
Nicholson,  Governor,  52. 
Nicolls,  Governor,  78. 
Nitschmann,  David,  124,  193. 
Northampton,  104,  155-159. 
Norton,  Andrews,  299. 
Nott,  Eliphalet,  263. 
Nursing  orders  and  schools,  368. 
Oberlin  College,  314. 
Occum,  Samson,  179. 
Oglethorpe,  James,  123. 
O'Gorman,  Bishop,  2,  15,  23,  24,  28, 

216,  312,  321,  396. 
Old-School   Presbyterians,  295,  345, 

353- 
Old-Side  Presbyterians,  166. 
Orders  in  Roman  Church,  330. 
Ordination  in  New  England,  96,  100. 
Otis,  Deacon,  360. 
Otterbein,  Philip  William,  228. 


Paine,  Thomas,  230. 

Palatines,  37,  53,  118,  140,  187, 

Palfrey,  John  G.,  98,  99,  loo,  383. 

Palmer,  Ray,  387. 

Pam-Methodist  Conference,  413. 

Pam-Presbyterian  Alliance,  412. 

Pan-Anglican  Synod,  412. 

Park,  Edwards  A.,  151,  182,  184,  204, 

305.  375- 

Parker,  Theodore,  300. 

Parkman,  Francis,  18. 

Parliament  of  Religions,  418. 

Pastorius,  117. 

Penn,  William,  112,  115,  143. 

Persecutions,  36,  51-,  107,  no,  130. 

Pierpont,  James,  81. 

Pierpont,  Sarah,  156. 

Pierson,  Abraham,  109,  150. 

Pilgrims,  45,  83,  84,  86,  88,  93. 

Plan  of  Union,  220,  258,  293. 

Pocahontas,  46. 

Pond,  Enoch,  378. 

Population  of  United  States  :  in  179O, 
315  ;  in  1850,  ibid. 

Porter,  Ebenezer,  286. 

Pott,  Governor,  55. 

Presbyterians :  in  Scotland  and  Ire- 
land, 37,  no;  in  America,  no, 
121;  in  New  York,  136;  schism 
among,  166;  rapid  growth,  186; 
alliance  with  Congregationalists, 
206;  earnestly  antislavery,  268; 
dissensions  among,  292 ;  the  great 
schism,  296;  characteristics  as  a 
sect,  332 ;  new  schisms  and  re- 
unions, 346,  353,  355;  liturgical 
movement,  388 ;  early  unproduc- 
tiveness in  theology  and  literature, 
394;  international  alliance,  412. 

Princeton  College,  173,  175. 

Princeton  Seminary,  251,  380. 

Prohibitory  legislation,  290. 

Protestant  sects  and  Catholic  orders, 

330-334- 
Protestantism  in  Europe  divided,  31- 

34- 

Provoost,  Bishop,  212,  213,  232. 

Psalmody,  182,  387,  391-393- 

Pulpit,  the  American,  382. 

Puritan  jurisprudence,  113;  Sabba- 
tarian extravagance  provokes  reac- 
tion, 371. 


/XDEX. 


427 


I 


Puritans  :  not  Separatists,  43  ;  in  Vir- 
ginia, 44-50 ;  in  Maryland,  59 ;  an- 
tagonize the  Separatists,  82  ;  settle 
at  Salem,  90;  fraternize  with  the 
Pilgrims,  94 ;  church  order,  96 ;  the 
great  Puritan  exodus  bringing  the 
charter,  98 ;  intend  an  established 
church,  100;  exclude  factious  dis- 
senters, lOl ;  divergences  of  opin- 
ion, 103  ;  in  New  Jersey,  109 ;  Pu- 
ritan church  establishments  fail, 
108,  128,  174;  Nationalist  principle 
succumbs  to  Separatist,  176. 

Quakerism :  a  reaction  from  Puritan- 
ism, 113;  its  enthusiasm,  114;  its 
discipline,  1 14 ;  anticipated  in  con- 
tinental Europe,  115;  Keith's 
schism,  119;  Quaker  jurisprudence, 
143;  failure  in  civil  government, 
144;  and  in  pastoral  work,  145;  its 
sole  and  faithful  witness  at  the 
South,  149;  the  only  organized 
church  fellowship  uniting  the  colo- 
nies, 150;   Hicksite  schism,  314. 

Quakers  :  persecuted  in  England,  36 ; 
in  Virginia,  51,  53;  missions  in 
Carolina,  64;  persecuted  in  New 
York,  73 ;  and  in  Massachusetts, 
lOi ;  dominant  in  New  Jersey, 
no;  and  in  Pennsylvania,  116;  ex- 
cluded from  Evangelical  Alliance, 
408. 

Quanta  Cura,  bull,  with  Syllabus,  352, 
396. 

Quebec,  17,  20. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  39,  62. 

Redemptioners,  187. 

Reformation  in  Spain,  4. 

Reformed  Church,  German ;  begins 
too  late  the  care  of  German  immi- 
grants, 140 ;  long  unorganized,  146 ; 
persists  in  separation  from  other 
German  Christians,  195, 

Reformed-drunkard  ethics,  290. 

Reformed  Dutch  Church  :  tardy  birth 
in  New  York,  69 ;  and  languishing 
life,  74,  78;  revival  under  Frehng- 
huysen,  81,  134,  141,  163. 

Relly,  James,  225. 

Requiriinicnto  of  the  Spanish,  9. 

Restoration  of  the  Stuarts,  51. 

Revival  of  1857,  342. 


Revival  of  Roman  Catholic  Church, 

214. 
Rhode  Island,  92,  106,  107. 
Rice,  David,  237. 
Rice,  Luther,  253. 
Ripley,  George,  299, 
Rising,  Governor,  77. 
Robinson,  Edward,  378. 
Robinson,  John,  83,  85,  86,  92. 
Robinson,  "One-eyed,"  173. 
Rolfe,  John,  46. 
Roman  Catholic.     See  Cath^ 
Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  87. 
Rush,  Benjamin,  226,  286. 
Ryan,  Archbishop,  324. 
Sabbath  observance,  371. 
St.  Andrew's  Brotherhood,  369.    . 
St.  Augustine,  10. 
St.  Lawrence,  the,  17. 
Salem,  90,  96. 
Saloons,  tippling,  285,  288. 
Saltonstall,  Gurdon,  132,  133. 
Salvation  Army,  370. 
Salzburgers,  37,  124,  125. 
Sandys,   Archbishop,   and   his   sons, 

44.  47- 

Satolli,  Monsignor,  396. 

Saybrook  Platform,  132,  137. 

SchafI,  Philip,  377,  382. 

Schenectady,  21. 

Schism  :  in  Presbyterian  Church,  167, 
241,  297,  346,  353;  among  Con- 
gregationalists,  249  ;  among  Unita- 
rians, 298 ;  in  Methodist  Church, 
302,  303 ;  among  Baptists,  303 ; 
among  Quakers,  314;  healed,  355  ; 
compensations  of,  107,  304,  354, 
404. 

Schlatter,  Michael,  195. 

Schools :  for  Virginia,  47,  48,  52 ; 
in  New  York,  70,  75  ;  in  New  Eng- 
land, 103;  in  New  Jersey,  no;  in 
Pennsylvania,  196. 

Scotch -Irish:  in  Virginia,  47;  in  Car- 
olina, 64;  in  Maryland,  121;  in 
Pennsylvania,  122;  in  New  York, 
136;  in  the  Alleghanies,  146;  in 
the  Awakening,  160;  principles  and 
prejudices  of,  186. 

Screven,  William,  64. 

.Scrooby,  44,  83. 

Scaluiry,  Samuel,  212, 


428 


INDEX. 


Stcts  :  European  imported,  31-34;  in 
New  York,  72,  134,  140;  in  Rhode 
Island,  106;  in  New  Jersey,  109; 
the  German,  117,  120;  multiply 
against  established  churches,  174; 
enfeebling  eft'ect  of,  1S8;  recon- 
struct themselves,  208;  competi- 
tion of,  328;  characteristics  of, 
332;  multitude  of,  400;  mischiefs 
of,  403. 

Seminaries,  theological,  249. 

Separatists,  t^t^,  44 ;  at  Scrooby,  Ley- 
den,  and  Plymouth,  81-95  '■>  '" 
Rhode  Island,  107 ;  their  principle 
prevails,  176. 

Sewall,  Samuel,  152. 

Seybert  commission,  338. 

Shaftesbury,  Lord,  62. 

Shedd,  W.  J.  G.,  382. 

Sisterhoods,  368.    . 

Slater  educational  fund,  357,  360. 

Slavery:  of  Indians,  8,  9,  152;  of  ne- 
groes, in  Florida,  10;  in  Virginia, 
48;  in  all  colonies,  147;  condemned 
in  Massachusetts,  1 5  2  ;  and  in  Penn- 
sylvania, 153;  increased  cruelty  of, 
153.  Kindness  to  slaves,  154,  179, 
246,271.  Constant  and  unanimous 
protest  of  the  church  against  sla- 
very, 203-205,  222,  268-277.  Be- 
ginning of  a  pro-slavery  party  in 
the  church,  277 ;  propagated  by  ter- 
ror, 279-282.  Pro-slavery  reaction 
at  the  North,  282.  Unanimous 
protests  against  extension  of  sla- 
very, 284.  Slavery  question  in 
Presbyterian  Church,  296 ;  in  Meth- 
odist Church,  301 ;  in  Baptist  Con- 
vention, 303.  Failure  of  compro- 
mises, 340.  The  Kansas  Crusade, 
341.  Apostasy  of  the  southern 
church  complete,  346.  Diversity 
of  feeling  among  northern  Chris- 
tians, 347.  Slavery  extinguished, 
285,  351. 

Smalley,  John,  225. 

Smith,  Eli,  273,  378;  Henry  Boyn- 
ton,  381;  Henry  Preserved,  380; 
John,  38-42,  47';   Ralph,  90. 

Smylie,  James,  277. 

Smyth,  Newman,  384.  ! 

Social  sci;;nce  iu  seminaries,  369,  3S0.  \ 


Societies,  charitable,  252-259,  295, 
407. 

Society  P.  C.  K.,  67. 

Society  P.  G.  in  Foreign  Parts,  62, 
67 ;  missions  in  Carolina,  67 ;  in 
New  York,  80,  120,  note,  135,  140; 
in  Pennsylvania,  119;  in  New  Eng- 
land, 131-133. 

Society  P.  G.  in  New  England,  66. 

Sophocles,  E.  A.,  379. 

Southampton  insurrection,  279. 

Spain  :  Reformation  in,  3  ;  conquests 
and  missions  of,  7. 

Spirituahsm,  337-339. 

Spotswood,  Governor,  52. 

Spring,  Gardiner,  353. 

Standish,  Myles,  88. 

Stiles,  Ezra,  204,  222. 

Stoddard,  Solomon,  104,  155. 

Stone,  Barton  W.,  234. 

Storrs,  Richard  S.,  384. 

Stowe,  Mrs.  H.  B.,  250. 

Strawbridge,  Robert,  200. 

Strong,  Augustus  H.,  378. 

Stuart,  Moses,  378. 

Sturtevant,  J.  M.,  294. 

Stuyvesant,  Peter,  71,  73,  77. 

Sumner,  Charles,  283. 

Sunday  observance,  371. 

Sunday-schools,  258,  362. 

Swedenborgians,  229. 

Swedes,  75-77. 

Syllabus  of  errors  condemned  by  the 
pope,  352,  396. 

Synod:  "  Reforming,"  105  ;  Presby- 
terian, 136;  disrupted,  167;  exci- 
sion of,  297 ;  of  Virginia,  346. 

Talcott,  Governor,  168. 

Talmage,  Thomas  De  Witt,  385. 

Taylor,  Nathaniel  W.,  294,  375. 

Temperance :  efforts  for,  75,  205,  206 ; 
the  Reformation,  285-291 ;  early 
legislation,  75,  288;  "  Washing- 
tonian  movement,"  288;  Prohibi- 
tionism,  290. 

Tennent,  Gilbert,  142,  162,  165,  167, 
169. 

Tennent,  William,  141,  160. 

Tennent,  William,  Jr.,  180. 

Thayer,  Eli,  341,  342. 

Thayer,  Joseph  H.,  379. 

Theological  instruction,  81,  217,  249. 


INDEX. 


429 


Tii^-ilojical  seminaries,  249,  251,  252. 
'Iheology,  New   England,    181,   243, 

294.  355- 
Theology,  systems  of,  375,  378. 
Ihomas,   Allen  C.  and  Richard   H., 

114,  139,  143- 
Thomas,  John  R.,  393. 
Thompson,  Joseph  P.,  404. 
Thompson,   Robert    Ellis,    122,    147, 

176,  346,  394. 
Thomson,  William  M.,  379. 
Thornwell,  James  11. ,  314,  r.oL-,  37S. 
Tiffany,  Charles  C,  65,  71,  120,  131, 

134,    173,   207,   210,'2I3,  224,  232. 

Torkillus,  Pastor,  76. 

Tracy,  Joseph,  162,  169,  172,  179. 

Trumbull,  Henry  Clay,  362,  379. 

"  Trusteeism,"  215,  310. 

Tuttle,  Daniel  S.,  335. 

Tyler,  B.  B.,  236,  238,  242. 

Union,  Christian  :  tendencies  and  at- 
tempts, 107,  191,  194,  206,  220, 
349.  405.  406. 

Unitarianism,  224,  249,  383. 

United  Brethren,  228. 

Unity,  real,  in  the  church,  175,  324, 
325,  334i  419 ;  manifestation  of 
it  yet  future,  36,  417,  419. 

Universalism,  225-228. 

Van  Twiller,  Governor,  70. 

Vermont,  21. 

Vincent,  John  H.,  363. 

Virginia.  38-53,  55,  173. 

Virginia  Company,  40,  44,  48,  54. 

Voluntary  system,  244,  261,  328. 

Vose,  James  G.,  107. 

Walker,  Williston,  100,  104,  386. 

Walloons,  69. 

War :  between  France  and  England, 
21,  184;  the  Seven  Years',  22,  24; 
Revolutionary,  202,  209  ;  the  Civil, 
348,  365 ;  produces  schisms  and 
healings,  353,  355. 

Ward,  William  Hayes,  379. 

Ware,  Henry,  249,  383. 


Ware,  Henry,  Jr.,  251,  299,  383. 

W^arren,  George  William,  393. 

Washingtonianism,  288. 

Watts,  Isaac,  158,  168,  182,  387,  391. 

W^ayland,  Francis,  383. 

Welsh  immigrants,  118. 

Wesley,  Charles,  124,  125. 

Wesley,  John,   124,    159,    198,    200, 

202,  217,  285. 
Westminster  League,  369. 
Westminster  Sabbath  law,  371. 
Wcstv.-p.rd    progress   of   church,  219, 

527.  35^- 
VVheelock,  Eleazar,  179. 
Whitakcr,  Alexander,  43,  46,  150. 
Wliite.  Father,  57,  59. 
White,  John,  89. 
W^hite,    Bishop    William,    210,    212, 

213. 
Whitefield,    George,    126,    163,    168, 

173.  175'  177- 
W^iggles worth,  Michael,  103. 
William  and  Mary,  College  of,  52. 
Williams,  Roger,  100,  106,  150. 
Williams  College,  248. 
Wilson,  Henry,  273,  274,  281. 
Winchester,  Elhanan,  226. 
Wingfield,  Governor,  39. 
Winthrop,  John,  49,  98. 
Wise,  John,  102. 
Women's  C.  T.  Union,  367. 
Women's  Crusade,  366. 
Women's  mission  boards,  367. 
Woods,  Leonard,  378. 
Woolman,  John,  150,  203. 
Ximenes,  Cardinal,  3. 
Yale  College,  230,  243. 
Yeo,  John,  60. 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 

343.  364.  409- 

Young  People's  Society  of  Christian 
Endeavor,  368,  409. 

Young  Women's  Christian  Associa- 
tion, 366. 

Zinzendorf,  124,  189,  190,  192. 


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